The First Time the NIA Had a ‘Plead Guilty’ |
Listen to this article:
This is the fourth article in The Wire’s series ‘The Forced Guilt Project’, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Read the series: Part I | Part II | Part III
Bengaluru/Hyderabad: Obaid-ur-Rehman had already spent over six months in the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison in Bengaluru when multiple agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), began making sudden visits to him behind bars. Barely 21, and an undergraduate student at the time of his arrest in August 2012, Rehman was facing charges along with 12 others for his alleged involvement in the terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyabba (LeT) and for conspiring to kill right-wing activists in Bengaluru.
While he was in jail, two bombs had exploded in Hyderabad’s Dilsukh Nagar on February 21, 2013, killing 18 persons and injuring over 100. The media, based purely on the NIA’s version, claimed that Rehman was among the “prime conspirators” in this attack, and had allegedly participated in the planning much before his arrest and continued later from inside jail. His face was flashed everywhere, and the media carried stories attributing a very specific role to him in the attack.
Eventually, as the case progressed, Rehman’s name found no mention in the FIR or the subsequent chargesheet. His name disappeared from the media, just as dramatically as it had appeared. The articles and video reports that once condemned him, however, remain searchable online, available for anyone to find.
Within no time, in March 2013, the agency pulled him in another case, this time for participating in a “larger conspiracy”. This new case no longer claimed he was a part of the LeT but another home-grown terror group, Indian Mujahideen – a name that first cropped up in 2008, following a series of terror blasts in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The larger conspiracy case was investigated by a team in the NIA’s headquarters in New Delhi, and within days, Rehman was moved to Delhi’s Tihar central prison. His first stint in Tihar jail lasted around 10 months, before he was sent back to Bengaluru. For the coming few years, the NIA kept moving him between Delhi and Bengaluru.
In Delhi, Rehman was lodged at Tihar Jail No. 4, a prison where all accused booked under special laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and cases investigated by the NIA and the Delhi Police Special Cell used to then be imprisoned.
In Tihar, Rehman quickly picked up the prison lingo. He also learned survival tactics: how to stay alive with minimal harm, avoid clashes with right-wing extremists, steer clear of the guards’ disfavour, and master subtle negotiation skills. But the single lesson that reshaped his trial was “katti“. The word has no fixed meaning in Hindi or any Indian language, yet it permeated Jail No. 4 so thoroughly that it even began appearing in official legal documents.
Katti, he explains, meant a reduced sentence. “Gunah kabool karo aur saza katwa do (Accept the crime and get the sentence reduced).”
Guilty pleas were gradually gaining acceptance at the time, though it remained limited to cases handled by the Delhi........