Acquitted Khaja rues lost prime years, but to focus now on career

Hyderabad: After being acquitted in all the cases, Shaik Abdul Khaja, an alleged ISI suspect leaves a sigh of relief after more than seven years of imprisonment and almost an ordeal of 16 years. Even though, he lost his prime youth trying to prove his innocence he now wants to focus on his career to build everything from scratch.

He is one of those 10-individuals who were acquitted in Begumpet Task Force office blast case (2005), while the latest and last being the case of alleged attack on police personnel while being transferred from city to Jangaon in 2011.The eldest son in the family who is now in mid-30s recalls how he lost his prime youth proving himself to be innocent all these years. He could not even attend the final rites of his father, an RTA agent who died about 2 years ago and could only meet his family almost 10 days after father’s funeral. 

“My father fought to prove me innocent and for my release till his death. Had he been alive he would have been the happiest soul to find me acquitted in all cases,” says Khaja, while remembering his father. His younger brother Shaik Abdul Kaleem, made headlines in 2011 after meeting Swami Aseemanand who allegedly confessed to his role in planning the Mecca Masjid blast (now acquitted in the case), while they were lodged in Chanchalguda Jail, as per the reports then. 

Abdul Kaleem is amongst the scores of youth who were arrested following Mecca Masjid blasts, which took place in 2007. Even though Kaleem was acquitted in 2008 in Mecca Masjid case along with other youth, akin to his brother’s case, trial continued against him in other smaller cases and was lodged in jail for some more time. “Our case is amongst the families affected by these kinds of cases. Even after court proves our innocence, society at large does not want to acknowledge that,” laments, Khaja, who now wants to start a new live and focus on his career.

 Abdul Khaja remembers how he was embroiled in different cases when he was studying graduation. It all began with smaller cases, at local level in Asmangarh, near their residence at Malakpet’s TV tower when he had intervened in a local land dispute of Ashurkhana, near Nomania Masjid. “The communal elements we were fighting over this land parcel and I was part of the group trying to save Ashurkhana land from encroachment. 

It was 2002, when the atmosphere was communally charged and all it started with small cases. The ordeal began when I had to leave to Saudi Arabia, but upon my return police arrested me in 2010. It took almost eight years to prove my innocence in all these cases,” he sighs. His case was fought by city-based lawyer Vali-ur-Rahman in the Jangaon court. The two accused in the Jangaon case were Vikaruddin and Syed, who died in the Aler encounter in 2015.

BY MD Nizamuddin