After a 43-year-old daily wage labourer allegedly died in police custody in West Bengal, the incident has left his family questioning the circumstances of his death.
Sukanya Roy | TwoCircles.net
KOLKATA — The custodial death of a daily-wage labourer from Nadia district of West Bengal on 5 December 2021 has left his family in distress. The family of the deceased, 43-year-old Abdul Goni Sekh demanded justice and punishment against the accused policemen.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, the family of the deceased alleged cover-up by district and state police forces, and the civil administration. They have said that the police’s conduct—including denial of entry into the morgue during the post-mortem and withholding information about their loved one throughout the case—has left them traumatised.
“Abdul used to come home rarely,” brother of the deceased, Shahjahan, TwoCircles.net. “He was very hardworking.”
Sekh is survived by his mother, a brother and brother’s wife.
Originally from Panighata village in Nadia district, Sekh used to work in Haryana as a mason.
Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), a West Bengal-based human rights group found out that Sekh had come to West Bengal to attend a festival in December, and was temporarily staying at his friend, Majid Molla’s house.
On December 2, locals of Nelua village saw sleuths of state police’s Special Operations Group apprehending Sekh from Molla’s house. He was kept in custody, without informing his family.
On December 4, the Bhimpur town police filed an FIR under IPC sections 489 (B) and 489(C) for trafficking in counterfeit currency.
In the wee hours of December 5, officers from the Kaliganj police station informed Sekh’s family that he had been admitted to the Shaktinagar district hospital. Early in the morning, they were informed that Sekh was dead.
The details of what exactly happened that night elude his family.
Sekh’s bereaved family waited outside the hospital for hours but were denied entry, except to identify the deceased’s body.
On-duty police officers from Kotowali police station told the family that the inquest and post-mortem had already been conducted.
Discrepancies in case
MASUM’s complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) blames Bhimpur police and Kotowali police for the tragedy.
Biswajit Mukherjee, an activist at MASUM, observed, “This case is not just about brutal police torture, but also its subsequent cover-up.”
Mukherjee pointed out multiple discrepancies in the case.
The first discrepancy is why the Bhimpur police mention 4 December as the arrest date in the arrest memo,
While locals maintain that police apprehended Sekh on December 2, the arrest memo mentions December 4 as the date of arrest.
Sekh was not produced in front of a Magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest as was his legal right.
Sekh’s family was presented with the arrest memo only after his death.
“The Kotowali police got them to sign the memo amidst all the panic at the hospital, without explaining what the document was,” Mukherjee said.
Additionally, the police informed Sekh’s family at 7:30 am that he had died of a heart attack when the post-mortem was conducted eight hours after his death. The real cause of death remains unclear as the post-mortem report has not yet been disclosed.
Post-mortem and inquest of the deceased’s body were also carried out in violation of Criminal Procedure Code Sec 176 (A). “Only an Executive Magistrate, Mr Ajoy Saha, was present at the morgue that day and not a Judicial Magistrate”, said Mukherjee.
Regarding the charges of Sekh possessing and distributing counterfeit currency, MASUM secretary Kirity Roy questioned why the seizure list has not been made public. “What was the date and time of confiscation, and the amount? Who were the independent witnesses present during the arrest?” he said.
Demands for accountability
The police officers of Bhimpur and Kotowali stations in nexus with civil administration violated CrPC Sections 41B(b), 41C, 50, 50A, 53, 54, 57, 58 and 176(1)A, notes MASUM’s fact-finding report. The incident also violates Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India, and the DK Basu guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.
Data on custodial deaths paints an alarming picture.
Responding to a question in Lok Sabha in 2021, the Minister of State for Home Affairs said that 348 people died and 1189 people were tortured in police custody between 2019-2021. That translates to roughly one torture case per day and one death every three days in police custody.
Police forces have enjoyed impunity for custodial deaths in India. This analysis notes for 1,004 custodial deaths between 2010-2019, only four police personnel have been found guilty.
Fair compensation needs to be provided to the victims of custodial torture and killings. Mukherjee said that the West Bengal Victims’ Compensation Fund (2017) has a provision for this. “What will his family do for sustenance now?”, he said.
“What is most pressing in this case, is that a fresh post-mortem and enquiry be conducted under established norms by the NHRC or CID. We need to get to the bottom of this,” said Roy.
However, even after writing to the NHRC, the Central and State Home ministries, the District Magistrate, the Police Superintendent and the Sub-Divisional officer, no acknowledgement of MASUM’s complaint has been provided by any of these offices. “This has never happened before, and is indeed very troubling,” Roy adds.
Sukanya Roy is a Master’s student at AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia. She works as a freelance journalist and tweets at @_aynakus_