By Sahil Makkar
IANS
New Delhi : The death of six prisoners and one warden within a week due to dehydration at Tihar jail here has shocked authorities as the National Human Right Commission (NHRC) and the Delhi government Wednesday ordered probes and the Delhi High Court sought a report.
The NHRC decided to send an investigative team to the jail to conduct an independent probe. The team would carry out checks in different cells of Delhi's high security jail in west Delhi Thursday.
"We have decided to send an investigative team led by an officer of the rank of senior superintendent of police following the complaints made by the relatives of some inmates lodged in the jail," an NHRC spokesperson said.
"The team would be assessing the facilities provided to the inmates, their health conditions and living conditions. It would file its report in two weeks," she added.
Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna also ordered a judicial probe.
"In the wake of six custodial deaths, the Additional District Magistrate (West District) Sanjeev Mittal has been assigned to conduct the inquiry and to file a detailed report by June 25," a press statement issued by the Chief Minister Office (CMO) said.
The statement said Mittal will determine the sections of law under which the inmates had been detained, details of the cases and stages of their trial and the period spent under police and judicial custody.
He will also investigate details of the medical examination at the time of being lodged in the jail, subsequent treatment given to them and specific details as to referral treatment given, nature and course of treatment at the referral hospital, whether inquest proceedings have started and stages at which they had reached.
"Investigations would also focus on the need for improving necessary infrastructure, adequate drinking water and sanitation to minimize the incidents of debilitation and diseases in future," the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court directed the Delhi government and Tihar jail authorities to file a report in two days explaining how six inmates died in the past one week.
As an unusual heat wave gripped the capital last week with the mercury rising above 44 degree Celsius, the first casualty was Amir, 23, who died June 6.
He was rushed to the nearby Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital after he complained of dehydration.
Kanwaljeet, a 57-year-old diabetic, died Friday – also after complaining of dehydration and stomachache.
Harish, a drug addict was admitted to the same hospital Saturday evening with a stomachache. He died Sunday morning.
Ajay, 30, who had been in Tihar since 2005 on charges of murder and was an AIDS patient, died Monday.
Vinod Kumar, 27, and Santosh, booked preventively in connection with a minor violence, died Tuesday of dehydration in the jail hospital after their condition worsened overnight.
On Wednesday, Man Singh, a jail warden, died of dehydration in the prison hospital.