On July 6, an Army soldier’s 11-year-old son was brutally thrashed with an iron rod, by a Maulvi for playing football in the garden of a local Madarsa. The incident reportedly took place in the Kadru town in Ranchi, Jharkhand. After the incident, the mother of the victim, Roshan Tara approached the Argora police station with a complaint against Maulana Mohammad of the Hussainia Madarsa in Kadru, Hussainabad, Ranchi. She accused him of assaulting her minor son without any provocation.
When the police took no action in her case, Roshan Tara again wrote to the SHO of the Argora police station on July 11, accusing the IO of negligence. Demanding a new IO be appointed to handle her case, Roshan Tara said that the present IO is trying to shield the accused Maulvi as he is a politically influential person. She has also alleged receiving death threats from the Maulvi for filing a complaint against him. The police too have been pressurising her to withdraw her case against the cleric, she alleged.
Notably, the Maulana, whom the police are trying to protect, as alleged by the victim’s mother, has close ties with the ruling dispensation of Jharkhand. Owing to his power and clout, the police are deliberately not taking any action against the Maulana, the 11-year-old victim’s mother has said.
Speaking to OpIndia, the distraught mother of the 11-year-old victim, who has been running pillar to post to seek justice for her son, narrated the harassment she is having to face from the Maulana, as well as the police in the area.
She said that on July 6, at around 5.30 pm her 11-year-old son went to the garden to play football with his friends. The garden where these children have been regularly playing for almost a year lies inside Madarsa’s campus. Her son was playing football with other children when Maulvi Mohammad suddenly appeared with an iron rod. While all the other children managed to flee, the Maulana grabbed her son and pinned him to the ground. He then started brutally thrashing him with the iron rod.
While narrating the incident, the devastated mother of the 11-year-old kept recalling the brutality that was inflicted on her minor son by the cleric, for merely playing in the garden.
On being questioned, the woman confirmed that her family had no personal rivalry with the Maulvi. She expressed disbelief at the cleric’s actions, saying she could not understand how such a trivial thing infuriated the cleric to the point where he descended to physically assault a small child, that too so mercilessly.
Roshan Tara claimed that she went to the police station the following day to file a report. The police, firstly, was reluctant to take the complaint. After much deliberation and pestering, the police accepted the complaint, she said, adding, that it’s been over a week now since she filed a complaint, but the police have taken no action against the Maulana yet.
Roshan Tara told OpIndia, “Whenever I speak to the IO, Tanjijul Imam, who is handling my case, he keeps saying that they are working on the case but nothing is happening.” In view of the negligence of the police, Roshan Tara has written to the in-charge of Argora police station and has demanded to change the investigating officer of the case.
The mother of the victim further informed that the Maulana’s aides have been threatening her with life for lodging a complaint against the cleric. They along with the police officials have been coercing her to take back her complaint, rued Roshan Tara.
“My husband is in the army and I am staying alone here with my minor child. No one from the neighbourhood is also willing to come forward to help me as they are scared of the Maulana”, she said. She further bemoaned the fact that she is constrained to remain indoors due to threats from the Maulana’s aides.
Meanwhile, the Argora police station in-charge Vinod Kumar told OpIndia that the police are probing the matter. He added that if the woman is receiving death threats, he would deploy more police officials around her house.
