Akbar Ismail Chaudhary’s father is ashamed of stepping out of his house, his brothers are worried about their future, and his mother is angry that despite her son being behind bars for a year now, he is being blamed for the Pune blast.
Akbar is an Indian Mujahideen (IM) suspect who is an Ahmedabad jail, is accused in the bomb blasts at Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.
His brother Mohsin has been on the run since Akbar’s arrest, and is being named by a section of the media as a suspect in the Pune German Bakery blast. Akbar’s mother Roshan was furious
when a DNA team came to their flat in Kondhwa, Pune.
“If my son is guilty, hang him, but why show him on TV every day after every blast when he cannot do anything as he is behind bars?” she asked.
Ismail said, in a soft voice, that his sons were innocent. Mohsin’s younger brother Yasin said Mohsin was on the run for fear of being falsely implicated in such cases.
“We are law abiding citizens, please do not trouble us,” Roshan said. Yasin said the Pune police did not trouble the family after the Pune blast although they told the family during regular enquiry that Mohsin had visited Pune in the recent past. “They should have arrested him rather than telling us that they think he is a suspect,” Yasin said.
At the residence of Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy, who is also in judicial custody for over 17 months, his family has switched off the TV. Peerbhoy, a city-based software engineer, is facing trial for allegedly leading the IM’s media cell.
His mother said there was a limit to the family’s suffering. She said every time there was a terror incident, her son’s name surfaced in the media even though he was in judicial custody.
