Mumbai: Hours after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided multiple locations in Mumbai and Thane, an activist named Abdul Wahid Shaikh complained to the Mumbai Police alleging ‘harassment’ by the sleuths of the central agency, here on Wednesday.
The NIA’s pan-India raids – in connection with the action against the outlawed Popular Front of India (PFI) – included Shaikh’s residence at Vikhroli suburb in Mumbai, where a team landed in a pre-dawn operation.
Arrested in connection with the July 2006 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai suburban trains which claimed the lives of 209 commuters, Shaikh was acquitted in 2015 after spending over nine years in custody.
The human and prisoners’ rights activist has claimed several times that despite the acquittal, state or central probe agencies continue to harass him.
At around 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, high drama was witnessed near Shaikh’s home as he did not open the door for the NIA sleuths, but after they identified themselves as ‘police’, he asked them to come later.
“Some people claiming to be police came to my house at 5 a.m. They did not give any notice nor did they identify themselves. They broke one door and destroyed a (CCTV) camera. My wife and kids are unwell and we are all trapped at home, I have not opened the door for over three hours,” he said in a video post uploaded later.
Shaikh said that he has complained to the local police station, the Mumbai Police Commissioner and also the media even as a huge police posse was posted outside his home.
Since Wednesday morning, the NIA swooped on multiple locations in several states including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as part of the anti-PFI probe, and reached to search Shaikh’s home in Mumbai and other locations in Thane.
(IANS)
