October 2018 marks two years of the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed. Two years have passed since Najeeb, a Muslim student from Badaun, an M.Sc. scholar in the School of Biotechnology and a resident of Mahi-Mandavi hostel in JNU was beaten up, threatened with murder and then forcibly disappeared. In these two years, a lot has happened: the case of Najeeb Ahmed’s assault and disappearance has been buck-passed from one agency to another –Delhi Police, Crime Branch, Home-Ministry appointed SIT, CBI – all of which have shirked responsibility; there have been hearings at the Sessions Court at Patiala and the Delhi High Court for an ever-receding hope for justice; Islamophobic media channels eager to sell the “All Muslims are terrorists” imagery have alleged that Najeeb has fled the country to join ISIS; Najeeb’s family in Badaun has been harassed and intimidated continuously even while they wait for Najeeb to return; the ABVP members guilty of assaulting and threatening Najeeb have entrenched their impunity on campus while the JNU Teachers’ Association and the JNU Students Union have proved, by their meticulous silence, that Muslim lives have negligible worth in their bastion of progressivism.
But let us look beyond the yearly reminders of calendar time and remind ourselves of the Najeeb who has been removed from the everyday: what does the individual Najeeb stand for? His two younger brothers’ companion. His sister’s favourite elder brother, the one who coached her in science. His father’s hope and support while he is bed-ridden with partial paralysis. His mother’s aankhon-ke-noor for whom she has braved the sheer injustice and apathy of the state. A Muslim student from a backward district in UP, one who could have inspired others in his mohalla to pursue higher education. A budding scientist, like Rohith Vemula, in a field which has scant presence of Muslims. A representative of a community which has the lowest percentage in higher education in India. In brief, a life which was vulnerable because of a Muslim identity and therefore deserved care and protection.
Instead, Najeeb has been converted into a mere cipher in the statistics of the state: just one among the many Muslim lives that have been lynched in the recent past. The process of finding Najeeb has been nothing but a summation of bureaucratic procedures, where justice for Najeeb is a matter of utter disregard. This is why, after nearly eighteen months of investigations, the CBI has filed a closure report in the Delhi High Court and professed its inability to find Najeeb or question his assaulters. The lapses of the CBI are many: failure to conduct custodial interrogation of Najeeb’s assaulters (even though a Proctorial inquiry has found them guilty of causing violence to Najeeb), failure to even collect complete forensic data from the cell-phones of these attackers (three phones were left untapped because they were pattern-locked!). The Delhi High Court too has washed its hands off the matter and allowed the CBI to get away with blatant dereliction of duty. Meanwhile, in the Patiala Court, the file of the defamation case against those media houses which ran false reports linking Najeeb to ISIS has gone missing. Even though it has been declared by the police that these are unsubstantiated rumours, none of the media houses issued a retraction, as if obsessed in turning a missing assault-victim into a terrorist. Why do case files go missing, why did the Delhi High Court not instruct the CBI to conduct a fair investigation? In the Press Conference conducted by the present JNUSU on October 8, the JNUSU President declared that the CBI has been “incompetent.” The JNUSU President Is requested not to mince words and utter the glaring truth: Muslims like Najeeb face the violence of the anti-Muslim state which has zero respect and regard for them (whether the JNUSU President has the courage of conviction to say this is of course a matter of doubt).
But even in the face of stubborn injustice and apathy, it is our duty to resist. To continue to protest and demand answers from those who fear our questions about Najeeb. We owe this bit to Najeeb, as his fellow students from JNU. We owe this to Fatima Nafees (Najeeb’s mother), Mujeeb Ahmed and Hasib Ahmed (Najeeb’s brothers) so that they do not get alienated in their long struggle to search for Najeeb.
