The launch of an Urdu book based on the fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan was called off following the Pune Police said that they would take stringent action against organizers.
The book titled “Ishrat Jahan encounter,” authored by Wahid Sheikh, a human rights defender and author who was acquitted in 2015 of all charges in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case after spending years in jail, was supposed to be launched on Tuesday evening by B. G. Kolse Patil, former judge of the Bombay High Court.
Sheikh said to Maktoob that his book was successfully launched in Mumbai last week, and Pune Police is stopping him and his colleagues from organizing the event in Pune, saying that the book’s contents are “sensational.”
Sheikh said that the organizers got permission to conduct the book launch at Savitribai Phule Auditorium from Senior Police Inspector Sangeeta Yadav of Khadak Police Station. “But, suddenly, on Sunday morning, the municipal employee Koditkar, who is supervising the hall, informed us that our book is sensitive, so they are canceling the permission.”
On Tuesday morning, the Pune Police notified the organizers, asking them not to hold the event.
“Legal action will be taken against you if you organize the program without permission as per applicable law.,” read the notice issued by Senior Police Inspector Sangeeta Yadav.
The notice was addressed to Anjum Inamdar, president of Mulnivasi Muslim Munch Pune and Samajwadi Party Pune.
Innocence Network India, Samajwadi Party Pune, and Mulnivasi Muslim Munch announced the program.
Former IG of Maharashtra, author S.M. Mushrif, former IG Maharashtra CID Suresh Khopade, President of Kul Jamati Tanzeem Pune M.M. Sayyed, human rights lawyer Asim Sarode, Jamat-e-Islami Hind Pune President Azhar Ali Warsi and Samajwadi Party state general secretary Anees Ahmad were scheduled to address the event.
“I wrote this book in the full conviction that Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter. I wrote this book for justice. The book will be available soon in Hindi, Marathi, and English,” said Sheikh who earlier authored the book titled “Innocent Prisoners (Begunah Qaidi) Stories of Muslim Youth Falsely implicated in 7/11 Mumbai Train Blasts and other Terror Cases.”
