Rafiq Shah was imprisoned in 2005 despite of his constant protest of being innocent. After three moths of keeping Rafiq in custody, Inspector MC Katoch of the Delhi Police Special Cell wrote a letter to the registrar of Kashmir University (KU) asking for Rafiq's attendance record. Rafiq claimed that he was at his university and had attended all the classes on the day of the attack. The university, in turn, had sent out two replies which were suppressed by the Special cell.
67 people were killed and 200 injured during the triple bomb blast in Delhi, on October 29, 2005. Within three weeks, the cell arrested three Kashmiri men – Tariq Ahmad Dar, accused of planning the attack, Mohammad Fazili, and Rafiq Shah – a 22-year-old student of KU, accused of detonating a bomb in a bus, writes Hindustan Times.
Shah and Fazili were finally released from Delhi’s Tihar jail after twelve years on February 16, 2017. They were acquitted of all charges and Dar was held guilty of links to a “banned organisation” but was acquitted of his role in the blasts.
Judge Reetesh Singh was shocked as to why Katoch didn’t just “verify whether the claims of Rafiq Shah regarding him being in class on October 29, 2005 were correct or not”.
“Shah’s case is illustrative of how rogue units like the Special cell have compromised India’s counter-terror operations through ineptitude and gross malpractice,” reports Hindustan Times.
“Cases like Shah’s are doubly dangerous,” said a former officer with the National Investigation Agency (NIA). “One, the real perpetrators are free. Two, you have alienated an entire population by putting the wrong man in jail.”
