SP Singh/Ghaziabad

Eighty-year-old Firoz was murdered for standing up to criminals and pursuing cases against them in courts for the past several years. Unfortunately, the battle against lawlessness was pursued by the old man all alone, getting no help whatsoever from the police. Firoz's battle against lawlessness started on 27/5/1998, when some criminals made an attempt on his life. He named the criminals he identified, in a report lodged at Sahibabad Police Station. The alleged killers Mausam, Saleem threatened him and asked him to drop the case. But, an adamant Feroz refused to oblige them.

In a second attempt silence him, the criminals kidnapped Feroz's son-in-law Zakir on 23/3/2001 and kept him in hiding in village Asaara of Baghpat District. The criminals freed Zakir only after he assured them that he would would pursue his father-in-law to turn a hostile witness.

This time they were sure that after this kidnapping, the complainant would definitely turn hostile and set Zakir free on 30/3/2001 at 4.00am near Asaara police post of ramala police station.

Zakir, reached the police post and narrated the whole story. The Ramala Police informed Sahibabad Police that a kidnapped person has been freed by some kidnappers in their jurisdictional area and was in their possession.

On receiving the message, Sub-Inspector D K Tyagi went and brought back Zakir with him. He threatened Zakir not to reveal the names of the kidnappers, to which he meekly obeyed. The victim was kept in police lockup for two days. He was allowed to go at 1.00am on 2/3/2001 only after the police received a bribe of Rs 20,000 from Zakir's brother-in-law Rashid.

After his release from police custody, Zakir came to know from Rashid that he was freed after a bribe was given. He told everybody that it was quite unfair to take bribe from a kidnap victim. A livid Zakir sent a written complaint to senior police officials.

When SI Tyagi came know about the complaint against him, he called Zakir to the police station, tied his hands to a pillar and thrashed him. He was humiliated and was allowed to go with a warning that he shouldn't open his mouth against the police and his kidnappers.

Zakir reached his house and narrated the whole story to his father-in-law Feroz, who immediately approached several senior police officials including the SSP, SP (CITY) and CO (Border). He gave some copies of his complaint to mediapersons too.

By chance, in April, Chief Minister Rajnath Singh visited Ghaziabad to attend a function of Varta Lok Housing Society. After the function was over, the Chief Minister was apprised of the shameful act of Sahibabad Police on which he assured that an inquiry would be conducted.

When they came to know that the matter was put before the Chief Minister, the Sahibabad Police were very angry at Feroz. Meanwhile, the criminals, who attempted to kill Feroz and had kidnapped Zakir threatened the family of Feroz that they would have to face dire consequences.

The victims Zakir and Feroz informed the police that they were being threatened by Mausam, Saleem and company. The police did nothing on their complaint.

Sub Inspector Tyagi was not even transferred from his beat. And finally, at 5.30pm on the 3rd of this month, Mausam, Saleem alias Kala, Nawab and Momin shot Feroz dead.

Even after the expiry of three days the police have done nothing in this case and the notorious criminals are still at large.