Shocking tale of Rafiq in police custody: Rats in pants, forced to drink urine

I was forced to drink urine instead of water, kept naked and forced to suck private parts of body (sic) of other co-accused.

NEW DELHI:  Mohammad Rafiq Shah, a Kashmiri Muslim youth who was on Thursday acquitted  of all charges in the 2005 Delhi serial blast that killed 67 people and injured over 200 detailed the shocking abuse and humiliation  in police custody.

Rafiq, who had spent almost his entire youth in jail to false allegations, was picked up by a joint team of Delhi Police’s special cell and Kashmir’s Special Task Force (STF) on the midnight of November 21, 2005.

The police officers brought him to Delhi and subjected him to extreme trauma and humiliation.

“I was forced to drink urine instead of water, kept naked and forced to suck private parts of body (sic) of other co-accused,” he told the court in 2008, when he was being charged with planting a bomb in a DTC bus on 29 October 2005.

“Rats were poured into my trousers. Police officials were laughing and taking my naked photographs with their mobile phones” as per Huffington Post reports.

Rafiq, now 34, was a student of MA (final) at Shah-i-Hamadan, Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Kashmir was in fact attending the class on the day of blast, which was proved by the University’s official records.

“When I was crying for help, they used to tell that (sic) every Kashmiri is a terrorist,” Shah told the court.

“To shake my religious sentiments, (sic) small pig was brought in got my whole body touched with it. After that I was locked along with the small pig in a single cell,” Shah told the court.

On Thursday, after 12 years, Judge Reetesh Singh let off Shah and other two accused due to lack of evidence as Delhi Police botched up investigation and had failed to prove their role in the bombings.