Between the media and police: piecing together Mohammad Barkat Alam’s assault

The Jama Masjid in Gurugram’s Jacobpura is more than a century old. With a freshly painted pink edifice, it imposes itself upon the sprawling and boisterous Sadar Bazaar which is criss-crossed by narrow lanes inhabited by hawkers and vendors.

At about 10 pm on May 25, 25-year-old Mohammad Barkat Alam finished reading his namaz at the Jama Masjid and headed back to his room some 200 metres away. As he reached a well-known local sweet shop, he heard yells of “O Mulle! Ae topi wale, ruk!” Not assuming it was directed at him, he continued walking. When the yells got nearer, Barkat saw six men. One of them walked up to him.

The Jama Masjid in Jacobpura during the namaz hour.

“He abused me and said ‘Why are you wearing this topi? Take it off’,” Alam told Newslaundry. “I said I had just read namaz and will not take it off. He said: ‘don’t you understand what I told you,’ and slapped me. My skullcap fell and I picked it up and kept it in my pocket. You can see this in the CCTV. I shouted: ‘Why are you touching my cap? Let me go’. He said, ‘So you’ll shout at me? Now you better say Bharat Mata ki Jai’.”

When Alam protested again, he says, the man told him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and threatened to feed him pork if he didn’t comply. “He then picked up a stick from the road and beat me. When I pushed him and tried to get away, he grabbed my kurta which tore off in the struggle. He gave me a few more blows. I started crying and then fainted. They fled in different directions and slowly a crowd gathered.”

Alam and I are seated on a park bench in front of the Jama Masjid. It’s late evening. He has just offered namaz and will return to the mosque at 9 pm for another offering. Thin and short, he has a kurta and pyjamas on, with surma around his eyes and a skullcap on his head. “From the way he abused, I could tell that he was a local,” he says.

Alam is from Begusarai in Bihar. His mother lives there along with five of his sisters, three of whom got married thanks to his savings. He also has a brother in Begusarai who drives a rickshaw there. Before Delhi, Alam worked in an L&T power plant in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh for eight months. “I’m the only one who runs our household. I used to earn ₹5,000 every month in MP, out of which I sent ₹4,000 back home. Then I did not get any work for two months, and I went back to Bihar,” Alam says.

From Bihar, he was sent to Delhi to learn tailoring and continue supporting his family. “I’ve only been learning lately so I don’t get paid. I haven’t sent back any money yet.”

The discrepancies

Despite the details that Alam furnishes, CCTV footage of the incident makes things a little hazy.

According to the Gurugram police, the footage shows one man assaulting Alam but not the other five who he claims stood by and laughed. Gurugram ACP Rajiv Kumar told Newslaundry that a sweeper who intervened and broke up the scuffle also confirmed to the police that there was only one assailant, and he did not see others accompanying him.

Alam did not tell this correspondent about any such sweeper. When I re-checked with him, he said one man did try to dissuade the assailant, but he was not a sweeper and neither was he successful in breaking up the scuffle. This correspondent met three sweepers at the same spot in Sadar Bazaar on Friday (May 31) at about 11.30 pm. None of them remember witnessing any such an incident.

Alam says that the CCTV camera is positioned such that it did not capture the five men. A sharp turn in the lane prevents the camera from recording those who stand on the left side of the camera’s field of view.

A picture taken after placing a phone camera in front of the CCTV. The police are using this camera in its investigation.

A view from the other end of the street. The CCTV is located within the red circle. The other five accompanying the assailant have to be standing on the right (in front of the shutter) to have escaped the CCTV’s field of sight, as Alam claims.

ACP Rajiv Kumar told Newslaundry that the police could have availed a much better view of the incident if not for a glitch in the CCTV. The glitch occurred only a couple of days before the incident. “There is a cable that got damaged, else we could’ve spotted even a tiny pin in the footage. Now we have to make do with a poor quality video. It’s bad luck,” Kumar claims.

There’s a second discrepancy. The assailant did slap Alam and displace his skullcap, but he did not throw it on the ground as Alam claimed on NDTV’s show, We The People. An Indian Express report quotes Gurugram’s Commissioner of Police Mohammad Akil as saying: “It is unclear in the footage whether the cap fell but the victim has said it did, so we are going by that.” The commissioner made the claim in a press conference. Newslaundry was denied access to the CCTV footage by the police.

Alam does not really see a difference between the two stories. What matters to him is that the skullcap did fall on the ground—a claim he stands by.

The third, and probably the biggest, mismatch is between Alam’s statement to the media and his FIR. The FIR does not say anything about the assailant asking him to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Jai Shri Ram“. Alam insists he told the police everything on the same night when he was taken to the police station, including the chants, but they simply did not record it. The police on its part claims to have noted Alam’s account to the last word without edit.

The CCTV footage is of little help in this regard. It does not record any audio and gives very few clues about what words were exchanged during this incident, which did not last beyond 1.5-2 minutes.

“One of the TV channels said that I speak two tongues because of the FIR,” says Alam. “I’m a poor man. I don’t want to visit a police station everyday nor can I afford it. Hum itna lafda nahi chahte hai (I don’t want any problems). But I’ve given the same account to everyone, even the police, but they did not include it in their FIR. I’m not educated; I can’t read or write. So I could only dictate and they wrote it. So if they didn’t write what I told them, why am I being called a liar?”

Newslaundry asked ACP Kumar about the mismatch. “We don’t know what the incident was. We’ve relied on his account word-to-word and recorded the statement. And chant or no chant, we’ve included Section 153A (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion) in the FIR,” Kumar says. Other sections in the FIR include 147 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 323 (causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

The third discrepancy gained traction after police commissioner Mohammad Akil claimed in a press conference that Alam’s statement might have been “tutored”. When asked why the police think this, ACP Kumar points to the discrepancy between the victim’s FIR and his statements in the media. But who could’ve tutored him? Without providing a name, Kumar says it’s those appear with him in “viral videos” and have been “accused by others in the Muslim community of ‘inciting religious passions’”.

These clues point to one Haji Shahzad Khan, who runs a Gurugram-based organisation called Muslim Ekta Manch. Shahzad was the reason Alam’s story made it to mainstream media. Khan was also seated beside Alam when he made an appearance on the NDTV show We the People on May 26 after the assault.

A Google search props up Khan’s name in multiple media reports from 2018 (see here, here and here). In one instance, he had protested against the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s (MCG) sealing of 11 buildings in Sheetla Mata Colony, including a mosque. The MCG had justified the move saying the buildings violated high court orders. The sealings came a week after Right-wing groups had protested outside the mosque against the loud prayers at the mosque.

Interestingly, around the same time, a Muslim collective called Jamiat Ulama had accused Khan’s Muslim Ekta Manch of “fanning communal tensions” by playing up the issue. The reservations were expressed in a letter to the  commissioner and deputy commissioner of police in Gurugram. “They are politicising the matter and giving impetus to Right-wing groups to become more involved,” the letter said.

A report in Swarajya also insinuated that Khan might have tutored Alam during a visit to Delhi—a claim that was echoed by OpIndia. Swarajya’s story was based on a conversation with Alam’s older cousin Murtaz, and quotes him as saying Khan had taken Alam to Delhi at 10 am the day after the incident took place, where “they made god knows what kind of videos”.

The report ends: “…given the glaring gaps between Barkat’s allegations and the footage, one also wonders if he was really tutored as the police suspects. And was it in Delhi?” The website’s social media handle tweeted: “Cousin Blames Controversy On Mysterious Delhi Visit”.

But there is little that is mysterious about the Delhi visit. The claims in the report are based on Murtaz’s poor recollection of events as well as the journalist’s lack of verification with Alam and Khan. In fact, between 10 am and 2 pm on Sunday, May 26, a day after the incident, Alam and Murtaz were at the local police station, and not in Delhi. Alam and Khan did go to Delhi that day, but in the evening. It was for the NDTV show We The People.

The next day, Monday, Khan called Alam to his home in Gurugram at 10 am so that he could provide bytes to media channels. Newslaundry has videos and call records that prove this, and both Khan and Alam corroborate this sequence of events. Murtaz also admitted that his memory had been patchy when Alam corrected him in this correspondent’s presence.

Another OpIndia report claims the police had “denied the angle of hate crime in the incident”. This is not true. ACP Kumar confirmed to Newslaundry that such an angle has not been ruled out. It is currently under investigation. While India does not have special laws to deal with hate crimes like in the US, IPC Section 153A still stands in the FIR.

Alam in the basement shop in Jacobpura. His cousin Murtaz is on the right.

The misinformation did not stop here. There were pictures online of Alam with NDTV anchor Sarah Jacob from the May 26 episode of We The People. It was accompanied by a twisted claim that Alam was a regular on the NDTV show. This hoax was duly busted.

When I asked Alam whether Khan had asked him to make certain claims before the media, he denied it. “I’ve been asked by members of the community to not talk to him if I want to put this issue to rest. But Khan is a really good man. He has helped me through all this.”

‘If this country doesn’t remain secular, it will collapse’

Haji Shahzad Khan resides in a small urban village in one corner of Gurugram. His verandah walls are adorned with pictures of him with smiling dignitaries. There’s also a small, old poster of the Indian National Congress pinned to a bulletin board—a collage with a smiling Rahul Gandhi and Khan himself. He says has no official links with the party but has friends who work for it.

Khan claims he is a social worker who helps not just Muslims but also Hindus who approach him with problems. He often channels their plight to the media and claims to cover legal fees for those who need it. The money, he says, comes from his construction business.

Haji Shahzad Khan, who runs the Gurugram-based Muslim Ekta Manch.

“Those who can’t help themselves, we help them. People come from Manesar and Ghitorni to meet me and seek help,” Khan says. On the table in front of us of lie letters penned by Khan that document multiple cases of harassment faced by Muslims.

When I bring up the Jamiat Ullema’s allegation that Khan fans “communal tensions”, Khan says they are motivated: “They are religious leaders who have given themselves to political games. If they can prove even a single allegation, I’ll leave social service and hand myself to the police. They are driven by pure self-interest.”

Khan records all calls on his phone. When I ask him whether he tutored Alam and crafted his media statements, he gets agitated. He opens the call recording app and makes me listen to a dozen phone calls between him and Alam on May 25 and 26. None of them indicate tutoring as such, but there is the possibility that he could have tutored Alam when they met. “If there are 100 media outlets, 50 will write good things about my work and the other 50 will not,” Khan remarks.

Khan also has videos of news channels taking bytes from Alam. In several of these videos, he prompts Alam to tell the reporter about how the police treated him. Alam then says that he was kept at the police station till late at night, but he never says what Khan believes to have happened: that the police pressured Alam to rescind his claims and withdraw the case.

“My beef with the police is that they did not record what he claimed,” says Khan, who claims to have confronted the police. “They said we’ve put 153A so we don’t need to put all the details in the FIR.” Khan says the police “tortured” Alam and then shows me a video of Alam sobbing at the police station. In the video, a crestfallen Alam seems to be saying that he wants to go home and not get involved in the controversy.

When I broach the question to Alam, he denies facing any such police pressure that Khan talks about. “The police just kept telling me that my claims were false after they saw the CCTV. I was scared but I did not face any such pressure.”  

As I leave Khan’s home, he stops me and says firmly, with a deep sigh: “We’re not 2-3 crore Muslims in India, sir. There are 20 crore of us. And you can write this: that everything has a limit. One can only take so much pain. If this country does not remain secular and just, then it will collapse. Hindustan se pyaar karna, uski wafadaari humara aadha imaan hai. Musalmaan is desh se gaddari kar hi nahi sakta (Our love and loyalty for Hindustan is half of our creed. A Muslim cannot be traitorous to this country).”

A snapshot of Sadar Bazaar

Sadar Bazaar in Jacobpura is the oldest, cheapest and most crowded market in Gurugram. During the day, it’s thronged by shoppers and vendors. “The only fights I’ve witnessed here are those between the customers and the shopkeepers,” says Ram Lal, who works at the sweet shop outside which Alam was assaulted.

While the shopkeepers and traders are predominantly Punjabis, poor migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar form a significant demography in this part of town. Hindus and Muslims live cheek-by-jowl and lead interconnected lives. Sanjay, for instance, runs a juice shop just outside the Jama Masjid. When I protest that the water bottle he sells me isn’t cold enough, he says it’s because he has to bring excess water bottles these days. “Inka roza hai,” he says, pointing towards the mosque, “so we bring extra bottles.”

Everyone Newslaundry spoke to in the market claims to have heard about Alam’s assault but did not witness it. Then again, the market usually wraps up by 10 pm, around the same time the assault took place.

The market at 7 pm (above) and 10 pm (below).

At the end of the street where Alam was assaulted is a one-storeyed house with BJP posters and saffron flags. “The assault did take place, but it was only a drunkard brawling with another person. The rest have been spun by their people,” says a man seated outside, while another nods in agreement.

However, a paan seller near the mosque named Shaukat Ali tells me that Right-wing groups create a ruckus at the bazaar’s meat market every year during Navratri. “They go up to these meat shops behind the mosque to ask them to shut down,” he says. Media reports corroborate this. The Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti, which includes the Shiv Sena, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Hindu Sena, is responsible for these anti-meat drives. In fact, another meat market nearby was shut down a few years ago because of a temple in the vicinity.

When I ask ACP Kumar whether the police think that someone affiliated to these Right-wing groups might have assaulted Alam, he says no. According to him, the affair is a routine matter and the Gurugram police is not investigating such groups. Last week, Police Commissioner Akil said that the incident appears to be “an individual criminal” rather than someone associated with a “group”. He added: “This appears to be an individual criminal incident and does not seem to be deliberate or any group attempt. No hardliner or any other group has said the accused is their member, which indicates this is an individual criminal who, under the influence of alcohol, committed this act.”

The street behind the Jama Masjid with the meat shops.

Both Alam and the police have established that the assailant was in a drunken state when the incident occurred. There are about six alcohol shops in the area that surrounds the mosque. While some owners beg ignorance, others say they have heard about it. “We have little to do with these Muslims. They’re dirty and they’ve ruined this place,” says a man who runs a wine shop across the road from the mosque. With a cow-shaped donation box on his desk, he says “Gurgaon mai gadar hone wala hai bohot jald (There’ll be a revolt in Gurgaon soon).”  

A blurry picture of the assailant released by the Gurugram police.

Alam’s first few weeks in Delhi have been eventful, but the events have been far from positive. Within a week, he has been in a hospital, a police station and a newsroom. He has been assaulted, questioned, interviewed and even smeared by those who claim that he’s lying. In the time I spent with him, Alam appeared frail and nervous, his confused countenance giving away the pressure of toeing the line drawn by relatives, community leaders, and the police.

As the reader would have noticed, Alam’s statements and admissions contradict the media, Shahzad Khan, his cousin Murtaz and, if one believes the police, even himself. It is probably this battle of narratives that has taken its toll on him. “I want to go home now,” he says. “Humare yahaan ate hi humaare saath ye haadsa ho gaya. Ab darr lagta hai. Bhai bhi bolte hai ki ab tum Bihar chale jao. (This incident happened right after I came here. I’m now afraid. My brother says I should go back to Bihar)”

The assailant, meanwhile, remains on the prowl.