Hubballi (Karnataka): Nazmeen Jamadar recalls the day when she and her husband Shamshuddin were seated at the front door of their home, trying to decipher the sonography report from the pathology lab close by. Nazmeen was in her first trimester, expecting the couple’s first child. Even before the two could have shared the joy of the discovery that it was twins, police barged into their house. Shamshuddin was whisked away for an “inquiry”, only to be arrested in connection with the rioting case over violence outside the Old Hubballi Police station on April 16, 2022.Shamshuddin was implicated in four of the 12 FIRs – all registered for the same alleged crime – by the Old Hubballi police station on April 18, two days after the rioting incident outside the police station, less than 100 metres from the Badi Masjid. All FIRs mentioned 100-150 unknown persons behind the riot. Later, 158 persons – including a minor boy – were arrested. In the charge sheet later, the police mentioned that over “1,000-1,500 people assembled, triggered by a WhatsApp message out of sudden provocation”. Of the 12, seven FIRs were registered by policemen and now have been clubbed together. The rest, registered by civilians, await both investigation and arrests. The police have invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the seven clubbed FIRs and the case has been assigned to a designated NIA court in Bengaluru. Nazmeen gave birth to her twin sons prematurely, in October last year. But Shamshuddin is yet to see them. She says she twice carried her two sons to the Gulbarga Central Jail, 350 kilometres away, where her husband is lodged along with several other co-accused. But the jail authorities denied permission for him to see them, she says. Nazmeen is a resident of Anand Nagar, one of the Muslim-majority areas in the northern part of Hubballi. In this locality, almost every lane has a story of a man or two having been arrested in this riot case. Every house has a story of despair and injustice. Men were also picked up from other Muslim pockets of Ajmer Nagar, Asar Mohalla, Bantikatta, Mantur Road and the Old Hubballi region. Nazmeen (right) with her twin sons. Photo: Sukanya Shantha.The April 16 incident is of a peculiar kind. It was the month of Ramzan. Most Muslim residents of Hubballi would invariably come to the Badi Masjid, right opposite the Old Hubballi police station, to offer namaz. This magnificent masjid, sharing the premises with the Hazrat Fateh Shah Dargah, can hold over a thousand devotees at a time. Just minutes before the men had converged at the masjid to offer Isha (night) prayer, one Hindu youth, identified as Abhishek Hiremath, had posted a highly objectionable photo as his WhatsApp status. “The post basically had a morphed picture of a saffron flag over the holy Medina. And it had the desired impact that Hiremath had aimed for,” Asif Bankapur, editor of a local news channel Swaraj Times, shared.Hiremath, under pressure, eventually took the post down. But by then, the screengrabs of the post had already been shared on different WhatsApp groups and the atmosphere of the city had turned tense. As men from Badi Masjid slowly stepped out after offering prayers, their phones too were abuzz with messages. The messages also mentioned that Hiremath had already been arrested and brought to the Old Hubballi police station. Several Muslim youths, enraged by the act, stormed the police station and began sloganeering. The response was spontaneous and angry. Men demanded that Hiremath be handed over to them. Some pelted stones at the police station, which was by now barricaded and its gate locked to keep the angry mob outside. A vehicle was torched nearby and two policemen suffered minor injuries in the stone pelting.What was registered as a case of riot, within days, was turned into an “act of terror”. The WhatsApp groups – Lion Lifter Fitness Gym, Islamic Sultan Group and Hubli Goodshed King – which many of those accused were a part of, were termed as “terror outfits” by the police. While Lion Lifter Fitness is a local gym in the city, Goods Shed is the name of a road close to the police station. The Masjid in Hubbali. Photo: Sukanya Shantha.A few weeks after the arrest, the police introduced sections of the UAPA, and the case was now been assigned to a special NIA court in Bengaluru, around 450-kilometres away. Meanwhile, Hiremath, who was the primary trigger for the rioting incident, was released on bail a few months later. Hiremath, who was not associated with any political outfit at the time of his arrest, has now joined the radical Hindutva outfit Ram Sene, according to locals. After keeping them in their custody, police sent the Muslim men to jails several hundred kilometres away from their homes, making it nearly impossible for their families to pay a visit. For court hearings too, they are only produced through video conferencing. The Wire met the families of many of those arrested in the case. Almost all of them, between the age of 18 and 25, were the sole earning members of the family. These men, mostly school dropouts, either worked as autorickshaw drivers, masons, or electricians. Their daily wages ran their households and with their incarceration, most have since broken down.Roja. Photo: Sukanya Shantha.Take the case of Roja Shaikh, whose 18-year-old son Niyaz is one of the 158 persons to be arrested in the case. Niyaz studied at the local Industrial Training Institute in Hubballi and also worked there. His father Noor Ahmed, who has many health complications, is bedridden and immobile. Roja too needs urgent hip replacement surgery. But with Niyaz’s arrest, the family is now dependent on help and offerings from benevolent relatives and community members.Roja claims the police knocked on doors and randomly picked up young men. “My son was in the college at the time police came looking for him. They said, ‘Send your son to the police station for questioning or we will take your handicapped husband along’. They assured me that Niyaz would be released in just 10 minutes and I trusted them.” Two days after his arrest, Niyaz’s grandmother passed away. “She couldn’t believe that her young grandson was taken away. She stopped eating and sat on a chair at the door hoping to see him again. She suffered a massive heart attack and died on the same chair she had been sitting in for two days,” says Roja, as she breaks down.Like Roja’s mother, the locals say at least 10-12 more people – all grief-stricken – have died in the past year but their sons in jail haven’t been told. Every time a lawyer, activist, or journalist visits the neighbourhood, commotion is seen everywhere. Families, with photos of their arrested children, flock around the person in the hope of some update or help in the case. At Roja’s residence, families of over a dozen arrested persons had converged in no time. While old and frail Mukhtar Shaikh spoke about his 24-year-old son Adil Shaikh’s arrest, an old lady, barely coherent, wanted to know in how much time her grandson Sarfaraz Mohammed Rafiq Bairakdar would be released from jail. This, Rafiq Malmari, an activist and also a relative of one of the young men arrested says, is because even a year after the arrest, the families have no clue as to what is happening in the case. “There has been a lot of mismanagement in the case. And knowing that the people here are unlettered and have no legal understanding, most lawyers took them for a ride.” Finally, the case has been handed over to a veteran lawyer, S. Balan, in Bengaluru. Of the 158 arrested, nine persons have been released on bail. These bail orders were passed after the accused persons took seriously ill while in jail. Asif Hussaini Yaliwal with his 16-year old son Mubarak. Photo: Sukanya Shantha.One of those released on bail include Asif Hussaini Yaliwal, who after spending 10 months in jail, was released after he was rendered immobile. “A blood clot suddenly formed in my brain soon after my arrest and I could not move. It took the court 10 months and 15 days to finally grant me bail,” says Yaliwal. As Yaliwal is slowly gaining mobility, his 16-year-old son Mubarak has started working as a mason and supports the family. Balan, earlier this year, after repeated bail rejections from the trial court, moved the Karnataka high court. He was hopeful that the court would appreciate the arguments put forth and grant bail to the 41 accused persons who had moved high court. The high court, however, rejected the plea. His arguments meticulously focused on the untenability of the UAPA sections applied in the case, which by the police’s own admission was an outcome of a “sudden provocation”.The prosecution claims that the accused persons had gathered with an “intention to commit murder of the police personnel” and had used clubs, pelted stones and threw chappals to attack them. Balan points to section 15 (1) of the UAPA which identifies deadly weapons like “bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances” as a part of the terror act. Interestingly, the police have not invoked section 15 (1) of the UAPA, and yet invoked section 16 (1) A of the Act, which quantifies the punishment. Balan told The Wire that the police’s case is merely based on CCTV footage, video recordings of bystanders and mobile tower data. “There is nothing more to say that the accused have terror links. Once UAPA sections and the NIA Act is invoked, a simple case too takes a very serious turn,” he says.The families, with the help of activists, have now moved the Supreme Court. Ashraf Ali Bashir Ahamed, managing trustee of the Sana Shaheen educational institution, who has been rallying for the men’s release says mobilising resources up to the Supreme Court has been an impossible feat for the families. “They are fighting the state’s might with very little resources,” he shares. The petition in the apex court, along with highlighting the lack of evidence, also seeks the quashing of multiple FIRs on the same crime. “The police have not made any move in the remaining five FIRs. Even if the arrested men manage to secure bail in this case (in which they are arrested), the fear is that police might arrest them in the other pending FIRs,” Ahamed says. In these pending FIRs, interestingly, the police have not applied UAPA charges so far.The Wire contacted R.K. Patil, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Hubballi South, who is handling the investigation in these cases. He refused to comment and directed this reporter to the police inspector of Old Hubbali police station, Suresh Yallur. Yallur while confirming the clubbing of the seven FIRs, when asked about the investigation in the pending cases and the police’s reason for not applying UAPA in those FIRs, said he “doesn’t need to tell a journalist what is he doing with his cases”.Since the Congress party came to power in Karnataka, Ahamed has met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other ministers several times in Bengaluru. Sources in Congress have hinted that the state is considering reinvestigation in the case.