Protesters clash with policemen on a street in Sydney's central business district
IN PHOTO: Protesters clash with policemen on a street in Sydney's central business district, September 15, 2012. Anger over anti-Islam video "Innocence of Muslims" spread to Australia on Saturday with protesters taking to the streets of Sydney, surprising shoppers and catching police off guard. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

An alleged terror plot targeting police during Anzac Day celebrations on April 25 provoked the cops to carry out counterterrorism raids across Melbourne. They resorted to using the Preventive Detention Order or the PDO for the first time in the history of the city. Under this order, the cops can keep a person in captivity without charging him of any offence for 14 days.

“I understand national security is important, but we need to keep it in balance. I think 200 police officers in the middle of the night for very young men is a little bit over the top,” the secretary of the Islamic Council of Victoria, Kuranda Seyit, told Guardian Australia. Some families in the city are accusing the police of following strongly punitive measures to quell the prospective action of the culprits.

Meanwhile, the cops met the families of the men they arrested as part of the counterterrorism raids. Around 200 of the men in uniform have alleged to have used torture in their interrogation techniques. It all began with the arrest of Abdul Numan Haidar — the man who had stabbed cops last year. The police said that some of the men held up in captivity are his aides.

According to Numan Haidar, one of the arrested men was attending the Al Furqan Islamic study centre in South Dandenong. Nonetheless, the centre has denied having any sort of a tangible link with the raids. "Also unsurprising is the fact that most of those raided and arrested have not been charged with any crime, again calling into question the need for military tactics against those not accused of criminal wrongdoing," the institute asserted in a statement.

The anti-terror raids were necessary ahead of Anzac Day and called for unprecedented levels of security. "We will see several hundred police present, we will see physical security arrangements in place which we won't have seen before," Tim Cartwright, Acting Police Commissioner, said.

While saying that the use of force was at times needed to find weapons, he also said that some measures taken for protecting the police were mandatory and that allegations of racial abuse shall be probed, as would the police’s heavy handedness. Brutality was evident after some teenagers accused the cops of assault. Eathan Cruse, a 19-year-old Indigenous man, has alleged police kicked him in the face when they burst into his house in Eumemmerring. He said he suffered extensive bruising and spent six hours in hospital.

To contact the writer, email ritambanati@yahoo.com.

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