‘The cops threatened to render me impotent’

Shaikh Aziz Ahmed’s awkward stumbling gait is the only physical evidence left from his three-year incarceration in Arthur Road jail.

Ahmed, 48, a former marine engineer with Glen Eagle Shipping Company, was arrested on April 24, 1993 by the Mumbai police for his alleged role in the 1993 bomb blasts.

The Pydhonie resident has alleged that he was tortured in jail. “They (police) would send tiny shocks through my genitals, threatening to render me impotent,” he said. “I was scared that I would really become impotent.”

The day he got bail in December 1998, Ahmed and his wife Zeenat prayed. “I was treated like a criminal. They called me an anti-national. And I still carry that tag today.”

He has also tried getting a job. “But whenever I touch something good, the police come and start making their inquiries,” he said.

Ahmed’s nightmare began the day he was to leave for Dubai. He was detained by Crime Branch sleuths at the airport. They sent him to jail two days later. 

Ahmed said his only sorrow was that his parents died fighting to clear his name. His parents died in 1997. “I regret that my parents didn’t live to see me freed on bail.”

Police have charged Ahmed for masterminding the 1993 blasts, meeting with Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, and carrying an American-made Carbine gun. None of these charges have been proved in the TADA court so far. Ahmed said he was a victim of police profiling. “My only crime is that I live in Pydhonie where most gangsters reside,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone in Dubai.”

Today, all Ahmed wants is to clear his name. “Once my name is cleared, I will make our passports and go to Mecca and Madina.”