Latest news with #Siddiqui
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
Thieves break car window, flee with Rs25 lakh cash
Nagpur: Unidentified thieves broke the window of a parked car and escaped with Rs25 lakh cash kept therein on Sunday evening. The incident took place when the car owner, Faraz Siddiqui (45), a petrol pump owner with multiple outlets in Vidarbha, parked his vehicle near KP Metro Station. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Apart from cash, his laptop, credit cards, and other important diaries were also stolen, Siddiqui said in his complaint to Sadar police. Siddiqui, who travelled from Mumbai to Nagpur to collect cash, met a friend in his car who handed over the money before leaving. Afterwards, Siddiqui parked his vehicle nearby and stepped away to attend to other work. According to Sadar police station inspector Manish Thakre, Siddiqui returned to his car after about an hour to find the window smashed and the bag containing cash missing. Sources said the vehicle was parked in an open area with little CCTV surveillance, and the few cameras installed there were reportedly non-functional. Police believe that if the car was parked in a designated parking zone, CCTV footage could have helped identify the suspects. Sources in the police department suspect that the theft was not random. Preliminary leads suggest that the culprits may have had prior knowledge of Siddiqui carrying the cash and were likely monitoring his movements. A case has been registered under relevant sections. Investigating teams are scanning CCTV footage from nearby areas and speaking with locals for any clues.
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Sport
- New Indian Express
From Sangareddy pool to national arena, 13-year-old Siddiqui to represent Telangana in junior water polo
SANGAREDDY: Four years ago, Mohammad Abdul Rehman Siddiqui first dipped his toes into a pool at Sangareddy Stadium, simply to learn how to swim. Today, the 13-year-old from the district headquarters is not just swimming laps; he's making waves on the national stage. Selected for the junior-level 51st National Aquatic Championship in water polo, Siddiqui has turned a budding interest into elite sporting achievement, all while maintaining academic scores of 80%–90%. His journey shows how dedication, talent and strong family support can take a young athlete from local waters to national competition. Siddiqui's water polo journey began with regular visits to the local pool alongside his father. 'I started going to the swimming pool with my father at Sangareddy Stadium. The coaches there encouraged me to take up water polo to test my skills,' he tells TNIE. Since then, he has bagged medals at sub-junior and junior-level water polo competitions held in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district and at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad. 'I usually practice on Sundays and holidays,' he adds. His latest milestone came after he excelled at a recent tournament organised by the State Swimming Association, which earned him a spot at the 51st Junior National Aquatic Championship, to be held in Bengaluru from August 4 to 8. 'Swimming gave me special recognition,' says Siddiqui, crediting his father for supporting him at every step. He also believes more youngsters could be drawn to aquatic sports if better infrastructure were made available. 'Arranging starting blocks and a gym would attract more students. Many prefer football, cricket or volleyball, but with the right facilities, more might take an interest in swimming and water polo,' the teenager remarks.
The Wire
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Wire
'When I Got Home, We Just Cried': A Muslim Man's Journey From the Phansi Yard to Acquittal
Communalism Sukanya Shantha 42-year-old Ehtesham Qutubuddin, who was a death row convict for nearly a decade before being acquitted by the Bombay high court earlier this month, reflects on time in prison. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty A tiny 80-square-feet room, fitted inside a compact V-shaped enclosure known as the phansi yard (gallows yard) of Nagpur Central Prison, served as 'home' for 42-year-old Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui for nearly a decade. In 2015, soon after a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court sentenced 12 individuals – five men, including Siddiqui, to death, and the remaining seven to life imprisonment – in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts case, he was transferred to Nagpur jail. All 12 men were acquitted by the Bombay high court on July 21 and subsequently released from prison. Siddiqui describes his decade-long solitary confinement as a place that made him feel 'safe.' 'In the existing political atmosphere, especially as Muslim men convicted on terror charges, this isolation was the only way we could have stayed safe in jail,' he feels. An incarceration spanning two decades Reflecting on his two decades of incarceration – nine years as an undertrial prisoner in Mumbai and then as a death row convict in Nagpur – Siddiqui says that while the trial took nearly a decade, the transition from undertrial to death row prisoner was 'quite sudden.' 'One minute, we were jostling for space in the overcrowded prison barracks in Mumbai (until the lower court's verdict), and suddenly, we were thrown into solitary confinement. It was a very small room but it was still ours. It had an attached bathroom, a ceiling fan and a tubelight,' he says, describing the prison room. Solitary confinement in India is unconstitutional. Even for death row convicts, it is permissible only after their mercy petition is rejected by the President of India. In the serial train blasts case, the death penalty had not yet been confirmed by the High Court but they were still subjected to solitary confinement. 'But none of this really matters. It's a common practice. The moment a person is given a death sentence, the prison authorities transfer them into the phansi yard,' Siddiqui says, as he recalls the names of many death row convicts housed in the 30 tiny solitary cells near his. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty 'Many lacked proper legal representation and were simply abandoned here after the trial court imposed a death sentence. They would arrive here horrified, thinking this was where they would be hanged the very moment they reached there.' It became almost a duty of other death row convicts like Siddiqui to explain legal procedures, offer advice, and calm newcomers in the phansi yard. Siddiqui says he saw many come and go over those ten years. 'Almost all were eventually acquitted in their appeals before higher courts,' he points out. Siddiqui's observation is in sync with different studies on the Indian judicial system and capital punishment. The Death Penalty reports that the NLU- Delhi's Project 39A (now renamed as The Square Circle Clinic after it shifted its base to NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad), a criminal justice research and legal aid programme released every year has long established the pattern of death penalties getting either commuted to life or lesser punishment or in many cases, simply ending up in acquittals. Siddiqui recalls his interactions with five men from the Shinde family, who were sentenced to death by a trial court in a rape and murder case, only to be later acquitted by the Supreme Court. The Shindes, from a Nomadic Tribal community, endured 16 years of incarceration, 13 as death row convicts. 'They would keep asking me what I thought of their case, and I would keep reassuring them they'd be out soon. That simple fact made them so happy.' The Shindes were acquitted in 2019 following a strongly worded Supreme Court judgment. Among them, Ankush Maruti Shinde, was only 17, a minor, at the time of his arrest. Experienced sustained physical torture Siddiqui says the hope that their innocence would eventually be proven kept them going. 'We too survived prison life on that one hope. After all, how long could justice evade us?' he asks. Siddiqui experienced both extremes of prison life: sustained physical torture in Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail (complaints about which led to the transfer of the then-jail superintendent, Swati Sathe) and a relatively calmer existence with better food and living conditions in Nagpur. 'I'm not romanticising prison life, but Nagpur's prison was certainly a lot better. Which also means prisons can be made liveable if one wished,' he says. But his co-defendant Kamal Ansari's death during the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2021 shook him. 'Everyone around us was falling sick. Kamal fell sick and was moved to the hospital ward. He never returned.' Siddiqui says most of the men implicated in the case were unknown to him at the time of arrest. 'But as circumstances brought us together, we eventually became each others' support system,' he adds. The police and jail officials, he claims, tried hard to turn them against each other. 'And the frustration does eventually get to you. So, each time we reached a point of anger or frustration against each other, we would simply stop talking. That helped us cool off, and rework on our relationship,' he shares. Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui with his father at their family house in Jaunpur. Photo: By arrangement In Nagpur, Siddiqui had no trouble accessing writing materials. So he wrote extensively. His book, Horror Saga, which details his prison life and the botched up trial, was published last year. He has a manuscript ready for his next book. He has also translated several others while incarcerated. How did he access books and research materials in jail? 'I deviced a unique method,' he says, with a sense of pride. Siddiqui filed nearly 6,000 Right to Information (RTI) applications over two decades, primarily to gather evidence against the investigating agency, which helped debunk the police's case, and also to access books published by the government press. Earned over 20 degrees while in prison A college dropout at the time of his arrest, Siddiqui has since earned over 20 degrees, including several Master's, Bachelor's, and Diplomas. In 2001, while in his third year of a Chemical Engineering program, he was arrested for a few days for alleged involvement with the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), an organisation banned that year, leading to the overnight criminalisation of many men from the Muslim community. Since then, Siddiqui says he tried several times to complete his education and earn a formal degree, but it didn't happen. 'So, in jail, I made full use of the time to gain as many degrees as I could,' he shares. As strange as it may sound, among the first undergraduate degrees that Siddiqui enrolled himself was Tourism. 'I wanted to keep my brain stimulated somehow and not let the incarceration consume me. So, I went on this rage of enrolling myself for every opportunity that was made available,' he recalls. He knew how to read Urdu, Arabic but didn't possess a formal degree. 'So, I got one while in jail.' Siddiqui, who worked as a Desktop Publishing (DTP) operator as a local publishing house in Mumbai, now holds an MBA degree, master's degrees in English Literature, Sociology, Marketing, and Financial Management, and diplomas in Nutrition and Mass Communication, among others. He is in the final semester of a three-year law degree. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty If not studying, Siddiqui would take care of the small garden outside the barrack. 'Those plants were the only pretty thing to look at,' Siddiqui laughs. The prison rules don't allow assignment of any work to a death row convict. Which means, even though Siddiqui worked, he was not paid for his labour. According to the Maharashtra state's revised prison rules, a convicted prisoner is paid up to Rs. 65 per day, although a paltry sum and much lower than the minimum wages standards, yet some money that most incarcerated people look forward to to lead a dignified life in jail or to take back home at the end of their jail term. Having spent nearly two decades in different prisons of Maharashtra, Siddiqui says the level of surveillance is 'simply unnerving' now. 'You will find hundreds of cameras loom overhead. Even a slight movement for exercise inside your barrack is instantly tracked, and jail officials confront you with a barrage of questions,' he says." Surveillance doesn't stop here. Abdul Wahid Shaikh, one of 13 arrested in this case and acquitted in 2015, and several other terror accused have had to install multiple CCTVs inside and outside their homes to simply shield themselves from police harassment. 'Since release, every experience feels new' On July 21, when the high court acquitted the 12 men, their release orders were immediately executed – an unusual move. In many cases, even after the court order reaches jail authorities, releases are delayed, just to allow the state to file an appeal in the higher court. 'Maybe they just wanted us out. The Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, stating before the Supreme Court that the state no longer wanted us in jail is quite telling,' Siddiqui points out. Since his release, every experience feels 'new,' Siddiqui says. He and his co-defendant, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, boarded a flight from Nagpur to Mumbai. ' Hairaan kar diya Mohammed Ali ne (Mohammed Ali exhausted me),' he laughingly shares, as he narrates the experience of tasting freedom for the first time in two decades. 'He was so excited he simply couldn't stop talking. I worried his chatter would draw attention. I told him, ' Bhai, agle ek ghanta shaant rehna (Brother, stay calm for the next hour)." At Mumbai airport, they were met by a media frenzy. 'We didn't know how to handle this sudden attention; the last time we experienced anything like this was two decades ago at the time of our arrest,' Siddiqui says. In Mumbai, they had the chance to take a train to reach the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (an organisation that provided legal aid to the men all along) office but chose not to. When asked why, Siddiqui pauses but says nothing. At the time of his arrest, Siddiqui lived in Mira Road, but he now stays with his family in Younuspur, Jaunpur district, Uttar Pradesh, where his parents, four siblings, and, most importantly, his wife, Sabina, reside. Siddiqui and Sabina were married for less than a year at the time of his arrest in 2006. Siddiqui was only 23 at the time of his arrest, Sabina even younger. 'She stood by me, and my parents cared for her as their own' 'In those 19 years, I must have told her many times this could be an endless wait and that I wouldn't hold it against her if she sought a divorce. But she was steadfast. She stood by me, and my parents cared for her as their own,' Siddiqui says. He calls Sabina the 'real hero' of his story. 'Her resilience and trust in me was so deep.I can't express my gratitude enough,' he tells The Wire. Returning to Younuspur was an emotional homecoming. 'When I got home, we just cried. We barely talked; we just cried for many hours.' Relatives and well-wishers have been visiting non-stop. 'I don't recall most faces, but it would be rude to say so, so I simply nod. When I was behind bars, these individuals offered support and solidarity to my family. Now they are here again to celebrate my freedom. It's all too surreal,' he says. Siddiqui might have returned with close to two dozen degrees, but the future still looks 'uncertain,' he admits. 'Finding a job might not be possible. Maybe I will consider pursuing a legal profession,' he thinks aloud. But for now, he says he wants to just return to writing those many stories he has. 'The ones I've safely kept locked inside me for so many years.' 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New Indian Express
6 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
TMC attacks BJP on Bengali migrant worker death in Maharashtra; says he was killed for being Bengali
KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Friday alleged that a Bengali worker from West Bengal was murdered in Maharashtra for being a Bengali, escalating its attack on the BJP over 'atrocities' against Bengali speaking people in other states. The Trinamool Congress announced that it would fight against the BJP in every forum on this issue. Referring to the death of a worker in Maharashtra, the Trinamool Congress in a post on X said: 'How many more Bengalis must be butchered before the nation wakes up? A Bengali worker from North 24 Parganas, was MURDERED, his DISMEMBERED BODY STUFFED IN A SACK and dumped near his home in Maharashtra. His only 'crime'? Being Bengali in a @BJP4India -ruled state.' The body of a migrant worker, Abu Bakar Siddiqui, a resident of Baduria in North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, was recovered in Navi Mumbai's Bhasi area. The body was found wrapped in a sack some distance from his house. Siddiqui worked as a mason in Maharashtra. He had been missing since last Sunday. Investigators initially suspected that the murder was due to his wife's extramarital affair. The wife of the deceased and her lover have been arrested for the murder. The body of the migrant worker was returned to his house in Baduria on Thursday night. The family members have demanded strict punishment for the culprits.
Arab News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Pakistan PM assures continued support in Aafia Siddiqui case during meeting with her sister
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday met with Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, the sister of Pakistani neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui who is jailed in the US, and reaffirmed his government's commitment to providing all possible legal and diplomatic support in the high-profile case, the PM's Office said. Siddiqui, a Pakistani national, is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence in the United States after being convicted in 2010 of attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan. Her trial and detention have long sparked public outcry in Pakistan, with successive governments under pressure to secure her repatriation. 'The government is in no way negligent in the matter of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui,' Sharif was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office after he met Fauzia and assured her that his administration would 'continue to provide every possible legal and diplomatic assistance' in her sister's case. The Prime Minister's Office said Sharif had earlier written a letter to then-US President Joe Biden to urge action in the matter. He has now also formed a special committee, chaired by Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, to pursue further progress on the case. 'The committee will remain in contact with Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui and work to provide any necessary support,' the statement said. In October 2024, Sharif wrote a letter to Biden calling for Siddiqui's release and highlighting concerns about her treatment in prison. He also warned that her deteriorating physical and mental health could lead to self-harm. This January, as he stepped down as US president, Biden rejected a petition seeking clemency for the jailed academic. Siddiqui was arrested in July 2008 by Afghan police who said she was carrying two pounds (900 grams) of sodium cyanide and crumpled notes referring to mass casualty attacks and New York landmarks. The day after her arrest, according to the indictment, Siddiqui grabbed an M-4 rifle in her interrogation room and started shooting while yelling 'death to America,' the trial jury heard. No US agents or soldiers were hit, but Siddiqui was shot and wounded in response, according to US prosecutors. She was subsequently convicted in 2010 by a New York federal jury of attempted murder, armed assault and other charges. Siddiqui was never charged with links to terrorism. Siddiqui's family says she was visiting Pakistan in 2003 when she was abducted with her three children by Pakistani intelligence officials and handed to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which took her to Afghanistan. Pakistan's intelligence agencies deny the claims.
