The wheels of justice turned so sluggishly in this particular case that it almost appeared as if justice itself had been denied to the victim altogether.
Meet Abdullah Ayub, who endured an agonizing 20-year incarceration for a crime he was completely innocent in Uttar Pradesh.
His shocking ordeal began when he took the bold step of evicting Police Constable Khurshid, who had been residing in his rented house without paying any rent.
In March 2003, shortly after Ayub expelled Khurshid from his property, a shocking turn of events unfolded. Abdullah Ayub was "captured" in possession of 25 grams of heroin, valued at a staggering Rs 1 crore.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years as Ayub vehemently protested his innocence, adamantly asserting that the heroin did not belong to him. Unfortunately, the evidence against him had been maliciously tampered with, and he languished behind bars.
Ayub's legal counsel, the articulate Prem Prakash Srivastava, informed the press that officers from the Purani Basti police station had falsely apprehended his client by presenting fabricated heroin as incriminating evidence.
This shocking turn of events occurred shortly after Ayub's eviction of Khurshid.
It appears that Khurshid conspired with City Circle Officer Anil Singh, Purani Basti Station Officer Lalji Yadav, and Sub-Inspector Narmadeshwar Shukla to ensnare his former landlord.
These police officers not only planted counterfeit heroin on Ayub but also manipulated forensic evidence to intensify the case against him.
"After two decades, Ayub has finally walked out of prison, exonerated, as the court conclusively established that the purported narcotic was, in fact, an ordinary substance sold in stores for a mere Rs 20," proclaimed Srivastava.
According to Srivastava, when the trial commenced, the forensic laboratory in Basti verified the presence of heroin within the substance.
However, upon dispatching the same heroin sample to the laboratory in Lucknow, it was discovered that it was, in fact, not heroin at all. Shockingly, the sample had been tampered with by the police. The sample was then sent to the laboratory in Delhi.
Later, when expert scientists from Lucknow were summoned to court, they confirmed that the sample was indeed counterfeit and possessed a brown hue, whereas genuine heroin retains its white color regardless of climate conditions.
Subsequently, Justice Vijay Kumar Katiyar acquitted the innocent victim of this gross miscarriage of justice. The judge explicitly stated that the police had manipulated the entire situation, causing the court's time to be wasted by the prosecution.
So far, no action has been taken against the police personnel responsible for this malicious setup.
(With inputs from IANS)
