Udaipur : It was quite a touchy moment at the central jail here as Saddam Hussain stepped out of the prison gate and his mother Gulshan Bano ran to embrace him. Both the mother-son duo were speechless and tears poured down from their eyes. The people watching them, too found it hard to hold back their tears. Saddam, a 30-yr-old vendor who ran a paratha stall, had been in jail for past months and was released on the orders of a local court here on Thursday.
He was falsely named in a case related to fake currency lodged at the Ambamata police station here. Saddam’s counsel Narendra Kumar Joshi said that Saddam’s uncle Mohamad Hussain had sold his car to one Vasim Abbasi who paid the amount in cash on 15 November, 2020. When Husain and Saddam checked the currency during counting, they realised the bundles were fake. Luckily.
Saddam had videographed the unpacking of bundles during counting. He informed two cops Ashok Kumar and Arjun Singh of Ambamata police station. Since both the cops were on leave that day, they asked Saddam to go to the police station. When Saddam went there, a cop named Chetan asked him to come the next day.
The very next day, on17 November, an FIR was lodged against Saddam for possessing fake currency and he was arrested and jailed on 22 November. A social activist who knew Saddam, approached the SHO and investigation officer Ram Sumer Meena and apprised him of the case details.
The IO was given the video and call recordings which Saddam had made to the police officials to report about how they received the counterfeit currency. However, the IO did not include the evidence in the file.Later, Saddam’s mother gave a representation to the Superintendent of Police demanding a fair re-investigation of the case in the light of the evidence not included in the original investigation.
The case was assigned to DySP Chetna Bhati who held a thorough enquiry and found Saddam innocent. The report was submitted before the court, Saddam’s counsel Joshi and Manish Sharma, president of Udaipur Bar Association pleaded to the court to release the innocent man who had already spent 5 months behind the bars. ” It is a case of utter negligence and irresponsibility on the part of the cops at Ambamata police station. Had they held an impartial enquiry then, an innocent poor man would not have suffered. As per the Police Act, any cop even on leave, is deemed to be on-duty and he cannot escape from his responsibility” Joshi said.