Strap: First person whose family member was killed in Bakery raid testifies
Mumbai: “The police broke open the door of our room and even broke the glass window panes. They took away my father and two of his senior students. They threw my father over the balcony, but he held on to the grille; so, they pulled him back. They took him away after that – I didn’t know where. I thought they had taken him to jail with all the others. But after four days I was taken to the Sunni Khoja Qabrastan, where I saw my father’s body. He had two deep wounds — in the chest and forehead,” said Abdullah Qasim, a school teacher.
On Tuesday, Qasim became the first person who suffered the killing of a family member, to testify in the Suleman Usman Bakery trial. The accused are seven policemen, charged under Sec 302 IPC (murder) for having allegedly shot dead eight unarmed people during the raid on the bakery and the adjacent madarsa, which took place during the 1992-’93 riots in the city.
Abdullah was a little over 10 when he saw his father, Maulana Abul Qasim, for the last time. The Maulana was a teacher at Darul Uloom Imdadia, where Abdullah was a student. The madarsa is on the second floor of the Chunabhatti masjid and shares a wall with the terrace of the Suleman Usman Bakery, on Mohammed Ali Road.
At the time of the incident on January 9, 1993, Qasim was sitting inside the madarsa with other students. They could not go out since curfew had been imposed. They heard sounds of firing at around 1pm – bullets struck the door of their room, following which police barged in.
“There were 10 to 15 policemen, some in plainclothes, some in uniform. More kept coming. They asked us, ‘Where are your weapons?’ We were scared and started crying,” said Abdullah.
Two senior students sitting in the same room were also taken away and beaten with rifles and lathis, Abdullah told the court. “Qutbuddin (one of the students) fainted. They were going to shoot him but then one of the policemen told them not to shoot. Two policemen held Anis ur Rahman (another student) down, caught hold of his hands and legs, and beat him a lot,” he said. “They also beat other madarsa staffers.”
Afterwards, Abdullah said he saw a bullet stuck on the railing of the balcony. “Down at the masjid, the police had washed the spot where the dead bodies were lying. There was blood on the wall of the masjid leading to the bakery.”
Abdullah said he could not identify any of the policemen. “It happened so long ago. I was a child then,” he said.
This was the sixth time Abdullah had come to court. On all previous occasions, he had had to return without his testimony being taken. He is the third eye witness to testify in the trial which began in 2019. Earlier, a former bakery worker had testified about how the police had asked his co-worker Shamshad to stand and then shot him.
The Justice B N Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry into the ‘92-’93 riots had dismissed the police version of the raid, which said that police had been forced to fire after sten gun-wielding terrorists had fired on them from the terrace of the bakery. Neither any terrorist nor any sten gun was recovered during the raid. Describing the police’s conduct as “not becoming of the police force of any civilised democratic state”, the Commission’s report, tabled in 1998, had recommended strict action against Ram Dev Tyagi, who led the raid as Joint Commissioner (Crime), and two of his lieutenants. In 2001, Tyagi and 17 policemen were charged with murder, but nine of them, including Tyagi were discharged in 2003.