The Maudany case: A life sentence without conviction
As the platinum jubilee celebrations of India’s independence ended in 2023, Abdul Nasir Maudany marked a less auspicious milestone: his 23rd year behind bars as an undertrial prisoner after being booked in two separate bomb blast cases that occurred in the south Indian cities of Coimbatore in 1998 and Bengaluru in 2008.
Maudany, who is likely India’s longest serving undertrial prisoner, first spent 9.5 years of his incarceration without bail or parole for allegedly masterminding the Coimbatore bomb blasts that killed 58 people, only to be acquitted of all charges in 2007.
He was again arrested in 2010 for his alleged involvement in the 2008 Bengaluru serial bomb blasts that killed one person and sent to Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Bengaluru. Although he had been out on bail since 2014 in view of his poor health, the court rarely allowed him to leave Bengaluru except on a few occasions of death and weddings in his family, and even then under strict bail conditions. In July 2023, the Supreme Court allowed him to travel to his home state of Kerala and stay there for treatment.
On February 25, 2024, a critically ill Maudany was placed on life support at a hospital in Kochi. However, after a week, he clawed back to life. Maudany, founder of the now-disbanded Islamic Seva Sangh (ISS) and still-active People’s Democratic Party (PDP), exemplifies the flaws in the Indian policing and judicial system. His predicament also highlights the deep-seated communal biases within our society and all pillars of democracy.
Who’s Maudany?
In the late 1980s, a tumultuous period in Indian political history, the Mandal Commission Report was about to be implemented, the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign was at its peak, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was becoming prominent with its highly polarising communal agendas. During this time, Maudany, a 23-year-old Muslim cleric from Anwarssery, a coastal village in Kerala’s Kollam district, founded the ISS, which he described as a “cultural and charitable organisation” in 1989. While his followers saw it as a legitimate response to the rising influence of the RSS, the Kerala police had its hackles raised. For the law enforcement agencies, the ISS was a sectarian organisation that created Hindu-Muslim friction.
With his extraordinary oratory skills, Maudany and his organisation quickly became a political sensation in Kerala. Born to school teacher TA Abdul Samad and Asma on January 18, 1966, Maudany’s extensive reading made him politically aware at a very young age. He pursued higher education in religious studies and earned the title ‘Maudany’ (meaning ‘source of knowledge’ in Arabic).