An 87-year-old freedom fighter has accused the Sabarmati police of harassing him by alleging falsely that he belongs to Bangladesh and has links with the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.
The octogenarian, Santosh Kumar Saha, has sent a legal notice to the state’s home secretary, the director general of police (DGP) and the Ahmedabad police commissioner, about the alleged police harassment. Saha has alleged that he was called to the Sabarmati police station for questioning.
Saha is a freedom fighter who participated in the Quit India movement in 1942 on the call of Mahatma Gandhi. Even the state government pays him a freedom fighters’ pension, after an order was passed by the Gujarat high court in this regard in 2007.
He now lives alone in the Sabarmati area of the city, as his wife died some years back. His son, who was an engineer with the Ahmedabad Electricity Company (AEC), died while still young. In the legal notice, Saha’s lawyer, SH Iyer, has called the behaviour of the police worse than that of British rulers. The notice alleges that, on November 10 evening, two policemen barged into Saha’s house.
Before he could understand what was going on, they started questioning Saha, claiming that they had received some ‘information’ about his being a Bangladeshi’. The policemen asked him to present himself before the police inspector of the Sabarmati police station.
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