“Pair ghis jayenge lekin daurna nahi chhodungi. Faizan ko abhi insaaf nahi mila hai, uske gunehgaar abhi khula ghum rahe hai”
Kismatun, mother of the 23 year old Faizan who died as a result of custodial violence
Last year, when communal riots broke out in North-Eastern Delhi, the loss in life and property was immeasurable. It was estimated that around 53 people died at that time and more than 200 were injured because the violence that took place during the riots. Nearly two-third of the people died were Muslims along with a police officer, an intelligence officer and over a dozen Hindus.
In February,2020 a video got viral of a group of policemen assaulting 5 men who were detained by the police. The video showed these 5 men lying on the floor in excruciating pain forced to sing the National Anthem and chant ‘VANDE MATARAM’. Among this group of 5 men assaulted by the police was Faizan, a 23-year old youngster who sustained substantial injuries in that horrific episode. On 25th February he was admitted to the LNJP Hospital where he gave in to his injuries 3 days later and died.
Faizan’s mother in an interview claimed that her son was among the 5 men who were assaulted by the Policemen in that video and claimed that his son died due to the injuries that he sustained at the hands of the policemen.
The 61 years old Faizen’s mother, Kismatun filed the petition in the High Court of Delhi through advocates Vrinda Grover and Soutik Banerjee, seeking a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into her son’s death. In her plea she stated that the police had detained her son illegally, beat hm mercilessly as evident from the viral video and didn’t provide him healthcare in time due to which he ultimately succumbed to his injuries and took his last breath shortly after being released on the hospital bed.
The court asked the police to provide the information from the CCTV cameras which were operative at the time of the incident by the way of affidavit to which the police replied that the CCTV cameras in the police station were not working on the day of the incident due to some technical fault.
“During investigation, it came on record that on the date and time of incident – that is, on 24.02.2020 – CCTV cameras of police station Jyoti Nagar were not working due to some technical fault,” the police said, in its reply, further adding, “This fault had been lodged in the daily diary register.”
The police also provided a service report from a private engineer corroborating the statement that the cameras were not working on the day of the incident and that he did not notice any signs of tampering with the CCTV cameras or it’s footage when he examined the cameras trying to resolve the issue.
The police have not been able to completely identify the personnel who were involved in this act till now as they were wearing helmets and didn’t have their name tags on them. They added that they were only able to pinpoint one policeman on ‘’probable basis’’ from the video.
It is quite unfortunate that in India cases of custodial violence and deaths are increasing at an alarming rate. Throughout the world, custodial violence is considered to be on of the most cruel and inhuman violation of basic human rights. It is condemned globally yet we come across so many cases of custodial violence even today.
