‘Justice has not died’, says Javed’s father

By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,

Kochi: Gopinathan Pilla is happy at the finding of the commission that Pranesh Kumar alias Javed Ghulam was killed in a fake encounter. ‘Justice has not died; truth will win,’ he said. The father of Javed had taken much effort to bring truth to light in the extraordinary death of his son along with three others in June 2004. Pilla is a resident of Kayamkulam in Alappuzha district in Kerala.

Gopinathan Pilla was the supervisor of an engineering company in Pune. His son Pranesh Kumar reached Pune in 1991. He embraced Islam and married Sajitha, a resident of Pune. Since then, he visited his hometown only occasionally. He went to Kerala for his brother’s wedding in 1997. He had come to his parents with his wife and children fifteen days before his death. They returned to Pune on June 5. He was killed on June 14. At that time, he was working with a travel agency. The Gujarat police was not ready even to hand over the dead body to the relatives. The police buried the body of Javed along with that of Ishrat Jahan Sheikh, who was also killed in the encounter, in a masjid in Ahmedabad.

Gopinathan Pilla believed strongly that his son was not a terrorist and that he could never be one. He was adamant to prove Javed’s innocence. He contacted several legal centres and organizations for the purpose. He also visited Gujarat twice to get Javed’s certificates. Many human rights activists like late Mukundan C Menon helped Pilla in his legal battle. The police version was that Javed and three others were killed while the police was trying to catch those who had come to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But the police reportedly had no documents to prove their terrorist connection.

Pilla was very upset after the death of Javed. He used to visit his daughter-in-law and grand children in Pune. Javed’s eldest son Aboobaker Siddique stayed with the grandfather for some time in Kerala. At that time, Pilla was keen to take him to masjid for prayers and to provide him all facilities to practice his religion.