Representatives of Hyderabad Civil Society (HCS) and the families of two youths on Wednesday approached the media to complain about alleged harassment by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Hyderabad.
Numaan Jameel (23) and Adnan Ahmed (25), alleged that NIA is arm-twisting them to turn witnesses against all the accused, who have recently been detained/arrested by the NIA. The youth also claimed that NIA wants to take them to Delhi for this purpose, and the alleged harassment began on July 1.
A total of 11 Muslim youths were detained for questioning out of which the NIA arrested five from Old City Hyderabad. They were later produced before the magistrate on June 30, 2016.
HCS officials met the families as part of the fact-finding commission.
Numaan Jameel told media, "I had the habit of adding unknown people on Facebook so unknowingly, added a few people because of which NIA suspected us. I was just browsing about Iraq on the Internet, was just interested in watching the videos and read about Iraq but that doesn't mean I am involved with ISIS. For this reason, the police counselled me two years back.”
Adnan Ahmed told media that he had been planning to visit Turkey. He had himself cancelled his visit after which NIA had contacted him. He also said that he is not an ISIS sympathizer.
HCS members said that none of the accused believe in extremism, and they don’t even know the geography of Syria or the tools of terrorism.
General Secretary of HCS, Lat-if Mohammad Khan told The News Minute, "We have met the families of all the accused and have also completed fact-finding mission. I have only one question for NIA that on what basis it arrested five youth in 2009 Malegaon blasts, then gave them a clean chit later and provided compensation for its mistake. NIA will understand that how much people suffer because of these arrests.”
HCS has demanded that the government of Telangana should protect its citizens from exploitation by other agencies like NIA that are spoiling the image of Hyderabad.