Custodial Death

On 15 February 2022, 19 year old Jishan, an undertrial arrested for a petty theft in November 202, died in judicial custody of Delhi’s Tihar Jail. This report is based on PUDR investigation of this incident and its aftermath.

People’s Union for Democratic Rights, PUDR, welcomes the Union Government’s decision (March 31, 2022), to significantly reduce the ambit of disturbed areas under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). According to news reports, this decision will be effective in 15 police stations in seven districts of Nagaland; in 15 police stations in six districts of Manipur; and wholly in 23 districts and partially in one district in Assam.

PUDR raises questions about the death of a 24 year old man Mesar, in Mandoli jail, Delhi on 11^th November, the contradictions that have emerged in the official version of the incident and the lackadaisical manner in which the post death inquiry is proceeding. Mesar alias Salman was a cab driver and had come from Badaun, UP and was living in Badarpur in Delhi. He was allegedly caught stealing a tempo and assaulted by its owner and the locals in Kabir Nagar on the night of 10^th November around 2 am.

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) has been investigating incidents of deaths in police custody and publishing reports on these from the 1980s. These investigations revealed that these deaths were most commonly the unintentional consequences of custodial torture, which in turn was part of routine police practice.

The brutal truth behind deaths in police custody were commonly the result of torture of suspects, which is part of routine policing practice in India. The repetitive, almost mundane nature of accounts of custodial deaths reflected in our reports, and their similarity over the years, have shown the systemic and rampant nature, deep pervasiveness and centrality of custodial violence and torture in the practice of policing in Delhi. In report after report, we also saw how justice eluded the victims.

पीपल्स यूनियन फॉर डेमोक्रेटिक राइट्स (पी.यू.डी.आर) 1980 के दशक से ही दिल्ली की पुलिस हिरासत में होने वाली मौतों पर तथ्यान्वेषण को रिपोर्ट के जरिये से सामने लाता रहा है | इन पड़तालों में पी.यू.डी.आर ने अक्सर यह पाया कि पुलिस हिरासत में दी जाने वाली यातानाएँ गैर-इरादतन मौतों का परिणाम थीं, हिरासत में दी जाने वाली प्रताड़ना जो पुलिस के नियमित कार्य का एक हिस्सा ब

People's Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi

19th Feb 07

To,

The National Commission for Women

Deen Dayal Upadhaya Marg

Delhi

Subject: Custodial death and rape

Madam,

We want to refer to you a gruesome case of custody death and rape in Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh that has come to our notice recently.

The Minister of Home Affairs

Delhi Government

8th June 2015

Subject: Custodial Death of 24 year old Jagannath under PS. Okhla Phase I on 27th May 2015

Dear Sir,

On 22 May 1987, PAC personnel of UP reached Hashimpura, Meerut, took away about 50 Muslim men from a crowd outside a mosque, shot dead at least 42 of the men, and threw their bodies into a canal. On 21 March 2015, a Delhi Sessions Court accepted that the PAC personnel had committed these murders, but acquitted the policemen charged on account of insufficient evidence. Twenty eight years after the brutal massacre of Muslims by state forces, the guilty in uniform have not been identified and are roaming free. 

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights condemns the killing of Sai Reddy, a correspondent of  Deshbandhu, a Hindi newspaper, based in Bijapur in south Bastar, Chhattisgarh  on December 6, 2013. In a statement issued on December 10, 2013, the South Regional Committee of CPI(Maoist) claimed that  Sai Reddy had “played an active role against the people’s movement in Basaguda and Usur areas over last two decades”, and therefore was condemned to death.