Mohammad Faisal
Lawyer
Uttar Pradesh

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on January 13 regarding the torture of Mr. Mohammad Faisal by police in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh. Mr. Faisal is a lawyer and human rights defender.

On January 23, 2019, Mr. Faisal was forcibly taken to the Kairana police station by police personnel from the court premises. He was abused and tortured verbally, physically and mentally, and police confiscated his belongings and put him behind the bars despite his plea that he was a lawyer. He was arrested in connection with an FIR (797/19) filed on December 22, 2019, and accused of inciting violence during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act on December 20, 2019. He was charged under Sections 145 (joining or continuing in an unlawful assembly, knowing that it has been commanded to disperse), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offense committed in prosecution of common object), 153A (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

He was produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kairana on December 24, 2019 and remanded for judicial custody. The hearing of his case was on January 1, 2020. He was granted bail on January 2 and released only on January 7 after spending 15 days in the lock-up.