The sister of Zahid Farooq Khan-‘accused’ in Advocate Babar Qadri’s killing has issued a statement claiming that her brother has been falsely framed in the murder case.
We are producing her statement with slight modifications.
It was September,2020 about 5 o’clock in the evening when my brother namely zahid Farooq khan, resident of Nowhatta was in his shop in Khanyar Srinagar, few police officers came to his shop and he was being told to come along, by them. They said, “sir (senior police officer) wants you to come to Lal Bazar police station”.
Then our family got to know about this, and we went to Lal Bazar police station to reach out to him and confirm what is happening, why he is being detained as he was behind the bars for one year previously after abrogation of article 370, he was released from that PSA in July, 2020 after one year.
When we reached the Lal Bazar police station, we were told by police that he has been taken to SP office Hazratbal. We enquired, “for what”. They replied, “for Babar Qadri murder case investigation”.
All of us were in shock to hear that, we rushed to SP office Hazratbal, to meet Zahid.
All of this continued for 45 days, we went to SP office Hazratbal, police station Nigeen, police station Lal bazar each day, but there, police personnel’s used to tell us to go here and there, but they never allowed us to meet Zahid.
After 75 days they presented Zahid in front of the court, we got to know somehow about it and we rushed to the court, there we were shocked to see him as he was not able to walk on his own, he was taking the support of two persons to walk.
There we got a chance to speak to him, and he told us about the things that he went through in between these 75 days, he was not even able to speak properly. He said, “I m innocent, I did not do anything, they are just blaming me with false accusations. Zahid said, “police used to beat me every day for hours, interrogate me for hours to accept this crime that I never committed. I kept saying them, pleading them, to check my tower location, my (CDR) call recordings in between the murder time but they kept beating me saying, you are the one who did it.
He said, I was being interrogated like an animal, they used to take me in the interrogation room at 7:30pm and used to take me out and throw me on the ground at midnight, unconscious, then I used to recall all of this when I used to come in my consciousness.
Zahid said due to inhuman interrogation he was not able to eat anything for 26 days due to indigestion and was even not having control over urinating.
One day in between this DIG Amit Kumar visited the police station and Zahid was presented in front of him, DIG asked Zahid in front of everyone to tell him the truth. Zahid replied, I’m innocent sir, these people are torturing me every day and telling me to accept whatever we say, to which DIG replied to the police officers, please do smooth investigation, if this guy is saying to check everything, cctv footage, his phone cdr, why you people aren’t listening? The police officers remained quiet.
When DIG left, at the same point they took Zahid to interrogation room and interrogated for hours for the reason why he spoke against the police in front of DIG, in between the interrogation, he was being told that if he will not agree to what police is saying they will do his encounter today itself.
After 4 hours of torture they took him in the police van and dropped him somewhere in an open unknown place, there was a lot of police there, they kept the gun on his head and said you have to agree to everything we say else we will do your encounter here. He said, I thought instead of dying I’ll go for it, I will sign the blank paper that he was given by them and later court will do the justice as I’m innocent and there’s nothing against me.
Being his sister I’m writing it with tearful eyes, my brother is innocent, he himself cannot believe it till now, he has gone in depression, repeating the same thing 100 times that “I’m innocent”, “I didn’t do anything”, my parents are struggling each and every day to find any way to get him out of there as he is innocent.
All of this is affecting the health of my parents as well, mental and physical as well, my another brother also is not able to do anything properly as this incident has shattered our family into pieces.
By interrogating someone and forcefully making him sign a blank page of paper, they cannot decide our future.” ( ST )
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