The Hindu: Mumbai: Tuesday,
February 05, 2013.
Pressuring
the authorities to follow a legal process seems to have been Mohammad Shaukat
Shaikh’s biggest mistake. The slum-dweller’s relentless pursuit of justice had
shaken the nexus of authorities and builders and angered them so much that his
15-year-old son was allegedly kidnapped by the henchmen of the builders
Six months
later, his son is nowhere to be found, and the authorities haven’t moved an inch
towards bringing the guilty to book.
Mr. Shaikh is
a member of the Shastri Colony Ghar Nirman Co-operative Housing Society at
Santacruz (E), part of the larger Golibar slum that has 45 more such societies.
The Slum
Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has floated a redevelopment scheme for the
entire Golibar slum, which is spread over 28 acres and which has a population
of more than 26,000 people, in Mumbai’s upmarket western suburb, where land
prices are soaring. The approximate rate per square foot of built-up area is
Rs. 30,000. The SRA’s scheme has sparked controversies, with officials and
developer Shivalik Ventures accused of malpractices.
Led by social
activist Medha Patkar, the Golibar residents have been fighting a battle
against the developer and the government for more than five years now.
On August 1,
2012, Mr. Shaikh’s second son, Master Mohammed Sajid, 15, a Standard X student
of Cardinal Gracious High School, Bandra (East), did not return home after
coaching classes. Mr. Shaikh and his wife repeatedly visited the Nirmal Nagar
station and told the police officers that they suspected the hand of the chief
promoter of the SRA redevelopment project and his henchmen.
Through a
series of applications under the Right to Information Act, Mr. Shaikh exposed
the corruption and wrongdoings of these people. He had proved that the
promoters, in connivance with officials, had added fictitious and ineligible
names to the list of beneficiaries, while eligible people were kept out. On the
basis of his repeated complaints, the Vigilance Committee of the Maharashtra
Housing and Development Authority found discrepancies in the list and ordered
its re-evaluation.
And goons
threatened Mr. Shaikh to drop the matter. He was offered money to stay silent,
a number of false cases were filed against him, his house was attacked with
stones, an attempt was made to frame him in a drug trafficking case, and even
his water connection was broken.
“I never
wanted to become an RTI activist in my life. But the illegal acts of the
promoters… forced me to become one. And my persistence in getting justice has
put the life of my son in danger,” Mr. Shaikh told The Hindu .
For the next
56 days, the police did not register a case of kidnapping against the suspects,
but only a missing-person complaint. On September 25, Mr. Shaikh shot off a
letter to Home Minister R.R. Patil, the Director-General of Police, the Mumbai
Commissioner of Police and human rights organisations. In it, he warned of fast
and self-immolation. This forced the police to file an FIR under Sections 363
and 34 of the Indian Penal Code against five persons; but they excluded the
chief promoter. Even then, the police showed no urgency in tracing his son. “I
gave them three phone numbers which I found on my son’s notebook. They still
could not trace the owner of those numbers. The cyber cell seems to be sleeping
when it comes to my son’s case,” he said.
On January
30, Justices A.S. Oka and A.P. Bhangale, sitting on a Division Bench of the
Bombay High Court and hearing a writ petition, asked the police to consider
giving Mr. Shaikh protection. However, in their reply, the police said it was a
case of ‘missing person’ and not of kidnapping.
He and his
wife Gulzar Jabin are now worried about the safety of their other children: an
elder daughter and a younger son.
“I am being
punished for being a law-abiding citizen. Neither the government nor the
police, who are supposed to protect law, have come to my rescue. My only wish
is to see my son, nothing else,” he said.
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