Atik Ur Rahman's life in danger in UAPA custody, family seeks judicial intervention

Lucknow: The twenty-seven years old Atik Ur Rahman, a native of Uttar Pradesh who was arrested by UP police in October 2020 in a UAPA case, is seeking urgent judicial intervention as his life is in danger in Mathura jail.

Accused of allegedly 'conspiring violence' to undermine the UP government during the nationwide uprisings against the caste gang rape of a Dalit teen by Thakur men in UP's Yathra, Atik Ur Rahman endured jail for the past ten months. Rahman is a former national treasurer of Campus Front of India.

"Atik Ur Rahman might die in the prison if no proper medical care is given," in a press meet held on 27th August in the Delhi press club, his family urged the judiciary to intervene to save his life from the threat of custodial murder. In jail, he is suffering from acute chest pain, fever and diarrhoea.

Atik Ur Rahman is being admitted to the Mathura jail hospital where the jail authorities are calling his ailment a 'seasonal fever' neglecting his heart disease.

"The arrest was made just before one month in which his heart surgery was scheduled. Then onwards he wasn't provided with any medical assistance. We've been saving Rs 2 lakh for the past two years for the surgery. This negligence could be fatal to his life", his wife Sanjida said.

"He was in the forefront of the anti-CAA movement. His stern interventions against the police atrocities in his locality also had made him a target of the authoritarian rulers," said Campus Front of India national general secretary Ashwan Sadiq P addressing the press.

Ashwan terms the arrest a political vendetta and calls the Hathras 'conspiracy case' a counterfeit story created to curb the dissent.

"Now shoving him towards the same fate as that of Ft. Stan Swami's out of political vengeance cannot be watched inertly," he said.

"No one has the authority to deny the rights of a person even if he is convicted. Atikur Rahman is an undertrial prisoner. We have approached the court four times citing his medical condition, all of them were heard without due gravity and hence were turned down, his advocate Madhuvan Chaturvedi said.

In Hathras, a Dalit girl was gang-raped and she was killed. Following this, different sections of society reacted to this, agitated and protested in their own possible ways.

Rallies were being held in support of the accused as well. On 4th October, in Chandpa police station an FIR was filed with crime number 151/2020 against unknown persons.

It was being told that the content of the same was known to the police, they accused a political leader and a journalist of being in contact with the girl's family and provoked them not to go by the government proposal for compensation.

The UP police also said that by their investigation it was found that the girl wasn't raped. The government said that those who protest against rape are committing the offence of sedition. The FIR is against the 'public at large.

On 5th October 2020 Atik Ur Rahman, Masud Ahmed, journalist Siddique Kappan, and driver Alam were travelling to Hathras from Delhi. They were stopped on the way by the police and told that they can't go to Hathras. On the apprehension of breach of peace, sections 107, 116 of CrPC etc were charged on them.

Hathras wasn't a restricted area. They were presented before the sub-divisional magistrate. Subdivisional magistrate violated all the laws. The magistrate has no power to move the persons arrested under 151 CrPC to jail. There is no provision to send them to jail. But still, they were sent to jail. Atik Ur Rahman has been a patient of aortic valve regurgitation disease since his childhood.

In this condition, one wouldn't get proper blood circulation to the heart. Some days before the arrest when he consulted a doctor in the AIIMS, it was reported as severe. After the arrest, they were kept in temporary jail for 14 days quarantine. In the temporary jail, his condition worsened and he was taken to the district jail.

Even in the Mathura jail, Atik Ur Rehman's health deteriorated multiple times. We kept writing to the court, asking for treatment as per the jail manual. Jail authorities have taken him to the district hospital or SN medical college in Agra. None of these hospitals had heart specialists.

Recently, they were taken from Mathura jail to Lucknow for proceedings in another case. They were taken out from the jail in the early morning, they didn't have breakfast. They were hungry when they were taken out. On the way too, they weren't given anything to eat or drink.

In the evening they returned from Lucknow and reached the jail in the night. Food will not be available in the jail after 5 pm. They requested food. Atik Ur Rahman is an aortic regurgitation patient, Siddique Kappan is diabetic, starving in such a condition, his life can be in threat at any moment''

Advocate Madhuvan Chaturvedi said in a video interview given to The Wire.

Given the fact that even the accused in the case have informed the court about the way this case is framed, these concerns weren't aptly addressed by the judiciary.

In one of the initial hearings in February, Atik Ur Rahman and Masud Khan told the Allahabad High Court, "We are victims of communally charged politics and propaganda run by media'' while responding to the counter affidavit filed by the UP government. In their rejoinder affidavit, filed through Advocates Shashwat Anand and Ankur Azad, they state,

"Since several days prior to the arrest of the petitioners while en route to Hathras, a large section of the Media had been running programmes on a false and humbug agenda of 'Conspiracy to instigate Riots and create Caste-based unrest' and 'International Conspiracy to defame Govt. with funding from the Islamic States' in context of the Hathras gangrape incident. The said agenda was run by the Media Outlets purely on communal and divisive lines, targeting the Opposition Parties and their Leaders for the said 'Conspiracy.' However, the petitioners are not associated, affiliated or related to any political party.''

A website, the UP government projected as evidence against the four was debunked by several media outlets.

''In Atik Ur Rahman's case, we filed a petition at Allahabad high court. Several petitions, in this case, are pending in the High Court. It includes bail application, habeas corpus petition etc. On 12 August the court clubbed all these petitions to a single bench. All these are done, but till now there is no relief,'' Rahman's advocate said.

In three petitions filed specifically on behalf of Atik's health- in December 2020, March 2021, and May 2021 in the Mathura court, there were no clear instructions that directed at adequate treatment for Atik. The court just asked the government to 'do the needful', according to his advocate, as reported by The Wire.

In June, the UP police submitted a report in the court that said Atik is getting adequate treatment. In July, a writ petition was filed in Allahabad high court on medical grounds but it is yet to be listed for hearing.

''Denial of medical help to those arrested under the UAPA is becoming a norm. Police use the specious argument claiming inability to reach the accused to the hospital, while the courts stand by watching their orders being flouted. The death of Swapan Dasgupta, editor of the Bengali People's March, is directly the result of the callous approach of the executive and the courts towards those accused under this Act'', reads a resolution passed in All India Convention against the UAPA organized by the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organizations in 2010.