Police in Namangan Region have arrested inventor Nabidjon Junayev's son to force him to stop a hunger strike in Tashkent in order to get his stone collecting machine back.

Junayev, 65, from the town of Chust in Namangan Region, has been on a hunger strike since 3 December in the building of the High Economic court in Tashkent.

He demanded the court hold fair and just hearings into his claims against the state specialised design bureau for irrigation which since 1996 had been withholding the stone collecting machine he had devised.

Junayev intended to constinue his hunger strike until he received a positive outcome but stopped fighting for his brainchild when the authorities arrested his son Ulugbek.

On 6 December when Junayev was on the fourth day of his hunger strike, police detained his 32-year-old son in Chust.

His wife Fatima Abdullayeva said a police officer had come to their home and demanded Ulugbek hand over his passport to him. When he refused to do so, the officer demanded the young man follow him to a police station.

In the police station Ulugbek was told that he would be imprisoned for insulting the officer.

Father was set up in Tashkent

A criminal police officer from Chust approached the inventor at the High Economic Court's reception hall in Tashkent. He asked Junayev to follow him into the yard.

When he refused, the officer was embarrassed to pull the elderly man out of the building in front of dozens of witnesses.

"They trapped me," Junayev said.

He said he had been told that he had to go to the court's reception hall for which he had to go through the yard where four officers forced him to a car and drove to Chust.

On way to Chust, he was telephoned to be told that his son had been detained and the news had a negative impact on the old man's already fragile health resulted by the hunger strike.

As soon as he arrived in Chust and stopped his hunger strike, police released his son from detention.

Do it again

The inventor is now waiting for High Eocnomic Court Chairman Nurmat Ahmarov to deliver his pledge that the investor's case would be decided in December.

"If they don't solve my issue, I will go to Tashkent to go on hunger strike again," Junayev said.

Junayev devised his stone collecting machine in 1989 with a capacity of 90 tonnes of stones and hour. He registered two patents and two certificates for it.

In 1996 the design bureau failed to fulfil its contract obligations and the machine went missing.

"For several years design bureau managers promised me to return the machine or money but in 2004 when I realised they were fooling me I sued them in court," Junayev said.

The conflict raged in court for eight years and in October 2011 the High Economic Court decided that since the bureau design had changed its ownership and name it had nothing to do with the stone-collecting machine.

Uznews.net