Edited By :Aliza Noor
“I, Tasleem Ahmed Shah, have been in jail without a trial for five and a half years now…When will my longing for justice come to an end?”
These lines are from one of the letters penned down by Tasleem in Tihar jail.
Tasleem is a name you might have not heard of or read in columns or headlines before, but it is a name infamously linked with the incarceration in Delhi riots 2020.
Forty-five year old Tasleem, much like Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, Gulfisha Fatima and others, remains behind the same bars, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) while justice remains elusive.
Tasleem’s story has so far, stayed neglected while his trial is moving at a painstakingly slow pace, taking enough time for his son and daughter to grow up to realise the gravity of the situation.
To understand the story of this forgotten Delhi riots prisoner, The Quint spoke to his wife, Fehmida Khatoon and accessed some sombre poems and letters written by Tasleem from jail.
Tasleem was first arrested from his residence by the special cell of Delhi police on 8 April 2020 in FIR 48/20 related to the road-block that happened under the Jafrabad metro station in North East Delhi.
“The police raided the house in civilian dress, seized our phones, while ransacking our home in alleged search of weapons”, Tasleem’s wife, Fehmida, recalled the horrifying day to The Quint.
Two months later, Tasleem was granted bail in this case, only to be re-arrested on 24 June 2020. This time, in FIR 59/20, charged under the draconian UAPA. Since then, more than five years have passed.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.
