The Guwahati High Court has slammed the police for demolishing the homes of the five Muslim men accused in the Indian state of Assam. The police along with the administration of Nagaon district had demolished the homes of these Muslims in May this year on the charges of setting the Batadraba Police Station on fire. Chief Justice RM Chhaya in his remarks said using excavators and bulldozers to demolish houses “in the guise of investigation” was not provided in any criminal law.

“Will you dig up my courtroom in the name of the investigation if you say something is under the court?” he asked. He said, it seems nobody in this country is safe. Justice RM Chhaya added that even British politician Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, who created a penal code during the colonial rule, would not have thought of what the police did without any warrant. Bollywood films are careful enough to show actors handing notices or demolition orders before bulldozers are used, he said.

On May 22, this year, the Nagaon administration along with the police had demolished the homes of five Muslims who had allegedly set the Batadraba Police Station in the district on fire a day after custodial death of a fish trader, Safikul Islam. The district administration had also demolished Islam’s home. Residents of the Salnabari area had said the district administration along with the police razed around seven structures. Islam was detained by the Assam Police when he was going to board a bus for Sivsagar. Islam family’s told media that the police had demanded Rs 10,000 and a duck as a bribe to release him. “We could only afford a duck, so they [police] beat him to death,” Islam’s wife had said.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP