SIMI men’s lawyer ‘denied’ entry to Bhopal jail, approaches police

A lawyer for five suspected SIMI men lodged in Bhopal Central Jail failed in his court-approved mission to meet the clients on Saturday, prompting him to approach the police.

While counsel Parvez Alam claimed prison authorities demanded an untrue submission from him, jail superintendent Dinesh Nargave said his office was only going by routine formalities.

Alam registered a complaint at Gandhinagar police station, alleging that Bhopal Central Jail authorities “denied” him a meeting with the five clients despite permission from the judiciary.

The district and sessions court had, on Friday, allowed Alam a 20-minute meet with the five “operatives” of the banned Islamic students’ organisation inside the jail. Judge Ram Kumar Chaube, while dismissing a revision petition filed by the Madhya Pradesh government, specified that the lawyer should stick to the rules of the state jail manual.

On Saturday, when Alam reached the Bhopal Central Central Jail at 10.35 am, he was asked to fill up a form. The lawyer said he was asked to write that Adil, Irfan, Javed, Zuber and Mohammed Sadiq, who he wanted to meet, were his relatives.

“They are my clients; not relatives. I don’t understand why they are behaving like this,” Alam told HT. “They are now trying to frame me, too, as a SIMI activist.”

The jail authorities showed disrespect to Friday’s court order, he added.

Superintendent Nargave denied Alam’s allegations. “We took his identity proof, and also wanted him to fill up a form. It is a routine procedure,” he told HT. “We never stopped him from meeting his clients.”

On Thursday, chief judicial magistrate Bhubhaskar Yadav had pulled up the government for its delay in informing the court about the alleged October 31 “jailbreak” by eight alleged SIMI activists, who police shot down within hours on the city outskirts.