Mumbai: When Nadeem Akhtar Ashfaque Shaikh, 36, walked into a cafe in February this year to buy a bottle of water, it suddenly dawned on him that he was all alone, unaccompanied by jail guards, and free to go where he wanted and do what he wished.
He applied for a Sanad (enrolment certificate) to practise as a lawyer and soon after receiving the certificate from the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, donned the lawyers’ black robes and started appearing in court. With the Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind helping him with education expenses, Shaikh began studying on his own in jail. He travelled to the college in Thane during exams, always with prior permission from the court and accompanied by police escorts, for which he had to pay separately.
“For 14 years before that, guards would accompany me wherever I went, be it to the court to appear for my trial, or to the law college in Thane to appear for my exams. They would maintain strict vigil over me and take me back to jail as soon as things got done,” Shaikh, an accused in the 13/7 serial blasts in the city that left 27 dead, told Hindustan Times. Granted bail by the Bombay High Court on February 10, Shaikh decided to use his freedom and the knowledge about law that he had acquired as an undertrial and while pursuing an LLB degree from jail to defend other accused. A senior lawyer who had seen me as an undertrial in court was so happy to see me in the uniform that he gave me ₹ 500 as a gesture of goodwill. Then 22 years old, Shaikh was booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) and other stringent laws, arrested from Nagpada in January 2012 and remanded in the high security Arthur Road jail. Since jail inmates were allowed to pursue select courses under an open university facility, he enrolled for a BA degree in 2014, and later in 2019, appeared for the State Common Entrance Test (CET), eventually securing admission at a law college in Thane. Meanwhile, after the sessions court rejected his bail plea in 2017, he moved the high court and began assisting Advocate Anas K Shaikh, who was representing him.
That moment made me feel proud of myself for the first time in over a decade,” Shaikh said, thanking the Constitution for giving him the right to study law while in jail. For undertrials in high profile cases, careers, relationships, and health took a beating in the wait for justice, the lawyer said. “Years pass, parents grow old and die without seeing their children while children grow up seeing their parent through a mesh screen,” he said.
“It felt great to wear the lawyer’s uniform and appear before the court for the first time.
He began working alongside a relative who owned a small SIM card business while in school and later, enrolled for a BCom degree. he also took up part-time work at a leading pizza delivery chain While in college. Born in Darbhanga, Bihar, Nadeem moved to Mumbai in 2002 with his family and lived in Byculla.
