Parveena and many like her from various States are here to depose before a panel during a two-day “Independent People’s Tribunal on Torture, Extra-Judicial Executions and Disappearances” begun on Saturday.

T

he forum, provided by the Human Rights Law Network and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), is being held at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Claiming that her son was picked up by National Security Guard personnel, Parveena said there were many such affected families in Jammu and Kashmir who were “fighting for justice” under the banner of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.

Driven to begging

With her three sons behind bars since 2002 in the aftermath of the Godhra train tragedy, Bibi Khatoon from Rehmat Nagar in Gujarat has been forced to live in penury.

“Plainclothesmen, with their faces, covered came to our house. They picked up my three sons saying they would be let off after a meeting with their senior. But they have not come home till today. The police have charged them under POTA (The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002),” she alleged.

“My children are innocent. They were badly beaten up by the police. The policemen abused me when I went to meet them in jail. After my husband’s death, I beg on the streets to sustain my family,” Bibi Khatoon said.

Hailing from Tamil Nadu, Ravi narrated through a translator how he was tortured.

He was “stripped, hit with batons and brutally tortured by the State police” as they allegedly wanted him to confess to stealing jewellery, a crime he claimed he had not committed.

So severe were the injuries that Ravi lost his hearing. The “false case” is still on and he is now on bail.

Sedition charge against journalist

Defending her journalist-father Prashant Rahi, who has been “wrongly accused” of waging a war against the country, sedition and conspiracy, young Shikha wanted to know why he was illegally detained for five days before being produced before a district magistrate.

“My father, who was a correspondent with The Statesman, has been working as a social activist for the past so many years. He has always highlighted the struggles of the common people."

http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/10/stories/2008021057030800.htm