By Amit Kumar, Twocircles.net
On March 21, 2015, the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were celebrating Ugadi, the Telugu New Year. But for the family of Shaikh Hyder, a 25-year-old daily wage labourer, it was a day that ruined their lives forever. It was the day when Hyder died in police custody, after he had been arrested and allegedly tortured for stealing a bicycle. Nine months on, his family still await the truth, and for justice to prevail, despite two state commissions – the State Minorities Commission (SMC) and the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) – looking into the matter and sending recommendations.
Hyder left his home on March 21 at 11 am to go to the labour ‘adda’, where daily wage labourers congregate to find work. Around 1.30 pm, he was picked up and taken to the One Town Police Station, Nizamabad. His family was informed shortly after, but when Hyder’s brother and sister reached the station, they were made to wait for two and a half hours to see their brother. When they finally met their brother, “he seemed to be lifeless, we didn’t know whether he was alive or not and another policeman called an auto and sent three of us to government hospital’, they told the fact-finding committee of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee. The report can be read here.
At the government hospital, the doctor told them that the family had been too late in bringing the victim and asked them to go to Gandhi hospital, Hyderabad. By the time they reached Hyderabad, about 200 kms from Nizamabad, Hyder had breathed his last.
Amjed Ullah Khan, a former two-time corporator of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and a leader of Majlis Bachao Tahreeq, took up the matter the following day, ensuring that the Post-Mortem was conducted before burial. The Post-Mortem confirmed that the victim had been tortured, with his sole having two-inch deep cuts. “The report said the victim suffered from “deep and sharp plantar cut injury of left sole and its complications,” further attesting the fact that the body has several wounds, adding that an “Intra catheter (a plastic tube, usually attached to a puncturing needle) is still over the front of right above arm”, says Khan.
The report also suggested that Hyder had died while he was still in the custody of police.
The station house officer (SHO) claims that Hyder tried to escape by jumping the compound wall and sustained injuries as a result of which he died at a hospital on the same night.
Subsequently, the SMC and the SHRC asked for probe in the matter, and Rajshekhar Reddy, SP, Nizamabad, submitted his report to the SHRC on April 9. “The report is a classic example of how careless the police have been,” Khan told Twocircles.net.
Although the report was submitted in April, it was not until end-November that Khan was able to get a copy of the same. Following this, he has written a counter to the SP’s report, which, Khan claims, is “full of factual errors and is aimed at misleading the State Human Rights Commission. Serious and willful attempt has been made to suppress the facts.”
The report is full of typographical errors, including different age of Hyder mentioned in the report, along with calling him an “accused” although he was only a “suspect” as no case was registered against him, says Khan.
“The Superintendent of Police, Nizamabad has mentioned that Shaikh Hyder was caught and brought to the Police Station (Town-I) Nizamabad, by one complainant Shaik Mukaram while he was trying to commit the theft of a bicycle. He mentioned that they received the complaint at 1.30 pm and one Head Constable Sriram and two constables Sri. Laxman and Sri Srishant began questioning the victim. Within 15 minutes, Shaikh Hyder tried to escape from their custody. It sounds unbelievable that the police acted so fast on a complaint of attempt to steal a bi-cycle that the Sub-Inspector Thalali Khan deputed three of his deputies to question the suspect,” Khan says in his letter to the SHRC.
The most important aspect of the SP’s report, however, was that he admitted that it was the negligence of the policemen which resulted into inquiry of Hyder’s death and consequently, Head Constable Sriram and Inspector K Srinivasulu have been placed under suspension. “They have been suspended, but is that all that they will have to pay for the death of an innocent?” asks Khan.
Unsatisfied with the SP report, the SHRC had asked for a Magisterial Inquiry and the report has been submitted to the Commission,
The SMC, on the other hand, asked the Magistrate and the SP to submit reports. Unsatisfied with their report, they also set up a four-member team in the wake of Hyder’s death to look into the matter. A member of the team confirmed to Twocircles.net that they had submitted the report to Abid Rasool Khan, Chairman, State Minorities Commission, within a month. The report makes it clear that this was a matter of custodial death. The commission listed three main recommendations and sent it to the Telangana government: it asked the government to pay an ex-gratia amount to the family; action against police officials, it also asked the Medical Council of India to take action against the erring doctors at Nizamabad. Abid Rasool Khan, Chairman, AP and Telangana SHRC, told Twocircles.net “We sent our recommendations to the government, but there doesn’t seem to have been much action in this regard…the cops have been suspended, but neither have the family been paid an ex gratia, nor has any action been taken against the erring doctors.”
For the family, worse news was to follow. A month after the death of Hyder, who was the sole breadwinner in a family of five, his father, Sheikh Baba, also passed away.
Khan, in his letter, has also asked the SHRC to “order a CB-CID probe into the custodial death so as to bring out the truth behind Shaik Hyder’s death in police custody. The policemen, responsible for the death, should also be prosecuted under relevant laws. Further, compensation of Rs. 25 lakh should be paid to the victim’s family.”
But in the maze of commissions, recommendations and bureaucracy, it is clear that Hyder’s death was a heinous crime which continues to go unpunished.