Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde
Syed Maqbool was only 17 when he was arrested by Delhi Police for his alleged role in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar blast case in 1996. When he walked free of all terror charges in 2010, he had lost 14 years of his life in jail fighting to prove his innocence.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's statement last week that state police must be careful when arresting Muslim youth has sparked a row. Mr Shinde also proposes to write to state governments, asking them to be careful while incarcerating youth from minority communities.
While the move may change little for Maqbool, it has reignited the debate on whether the government's statements come with an eye on the minority vote ahead of national elections, due by May, and also whether the move is even constitutional.
"When you say you will identify terrorists on the basis of their religions, it is definitely unconstitutional. How can you differentiate between the innocent and the guilty on the basis of religions? It is clear this is being done for votes and people won't accept it," BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
The CPM had led a delegation to President Pratibha Patil in 2012 with a list of 20-odd cases where Muslim youths were falsely implicated in terror cases.
"If somebody continues to be in custody when it is shown that they are not responsible for it, it's the basic violation of fundamental rights. It's only in 2013 that Home Minister woke up. BJP may call it whatever it wants to call because it is their communal ideology that is propelling them to take a blatantly unfair and unjust position. Our stand is: irrespective of religion, (such things) shouldn't happen," CPM leader Sitaram Yechury told NDTV.
The Congress though has stood by the Home Minister's statement, denying it has anything to do with general elections. "This is not unconstitutional. You have to understand it in the context of what's happening. What he has said on false cases is correct and must be seen in that context," party spokesperson Raj Babbar said.
Activists, working with those who have faced false cases and spent years fighting the terror tag, say legalities aside, the serious repercussions of fabricated cases should not be lost in the political one-upmanship.