By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net
The death of a 16-year-old teenager inside a police station in Kolkata has shocked the residents of the Metiabruz region, even as the family of the deceased maintains silence over the issue, allegedly due to political pressure.
On November 21, the 16-year-old teenager was found hanging in one of the office rooms of Kolkata’s Metiabruz Police station, and this has led to many human rights organisation questioning the role of the police present at the station. The negligence of the police officials has led to many calling it a case of custodial murder and not suicide, as the police are trying to establish. When contacted, the local police denied the allegation and clarified the death as the consequence of heroin withdrawal that the boy was addicted.
But what is even more surprising is that four days after the death, the teenager’s family has not lodged any complaint against the police or anyone else and many are taking their silence, even after having lost their son, as a result of sustained pressure from political links to suppress the case. On November 21, the boy was called for some interrogation related to a case at Karbala Lane of Metiabruz. “We got this boy’s name in a gold robbery case from another thief and so we called him to appear at the police station. We kept him in a room with a guard. But when the guard came out for some tasks, he was found hanging with his belts and shoelaces from the ceiling fan. When he was brought to Hospital, the doctors declared him as dead. As far we came to know, he was a heroin addict and it was a committed suicide for the cause of heroin withdrawal as the doctoral report said,” Sitaram Bhattacharjee, the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Metiabruz Police Station told TwoCircles.net.
He also said that the boy was a vagabond and he was chained in his home by his parents and he used to sell household assets for the addiction.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police (DC), Port Division, Kolkata, Syed Waquar Reza, also pointed to the drug addiction as a possible reason. He said, “We learnt from the locals that the boy was a drug addict. Presumably, it is thought to be a suicide. But we cannot say anything else until the postmortem comes that may come within two to three days.”
The boy was from Nadial locality, a 2 km distance from Metiabruz, who was the fourth son among his six siblings. He worked as a tailor in Metiabruz locality. When his uncle, Arabul Molla, was contacted by TwoCircles.net to check why they have not lodged any complaint against anyone, he refused to answer. Instead, he said, “I cannot say anything regarding this, please. I will be calling you if we needed.”
But Altaf Ahmed, the Vice President of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), West Bengal, is taking it as a murder case that the Police, as well as the political links of the boy’s uncle, tried to conceal as a self-killing. He said, “ It is strange that the police has framed the murder as a suicide. How one can hang oneself with a belt and a shoelace from a ceiling fan? Is it worthy enough to believe that the belt and shoelace of a teenage boy are enough to arrange the trap with a ceiling fan when his body was continuously trembling?” He added, “If it was a self-killing, why were then the four gates of the graveyard packed with police vans? Is it not an attempt to hush up the killing as a suicide?” He also said that he came to know about the uncle of the boy, Arabul Molla, who has some good liaison with the local leaders of the ruling Trinamool Party and maybe that’s why he has been forced not to file any case against anyone.
Akhlaqur Rahaman Qureshi, the President of Majlis-e-ittehad Council, a non-political organization based in Kolkata, who visited the family of the boy and the locality, agreed with the points made by Ahmed of APCR. “If someone dies inside the police station, it is the police who are responsible for the death. If we take the case as a suicide, it is the negligence on the part of the police that caused the death. How can one dare to kill himself if the police station corridor is filled with police and other visitors?” asked Qureshi. He also blamed Arabul Molla for forbidding the parents of the boy to say anything regarding the death.
Qureshi warned that if the police do not work properly to investigate the unnatural death after the issuing of the post-mortem report, they would march a protest demonstration along with APDR and Prosecuted Prisoners’ Consolidatory Committee.
The allegations that Ahmed made was denied by both the OC and DC. The DC said, “ if it is proved as a murder, then the culprits will be getting punishments in accordance with law and order. But we cannot anything until the Post-mortem report comes out.”