Pay ₹5L to family of man who died in cop custody: HC to state

MUMBAI:THE Bombay high court (HC) directed the state government to pay ₹5 lakh as compensation to family members of Shaikh Muhammed Shaikh Rustam, a resident of Beed district, who died of torture in police custody. Shaikh was apprehended by the police on August 26, 2015, for allegedly stealing a mobile phone of a man, who happened to be the brother of a policeman.

In the evening, he was taken to a local government hospital in a seriously injured condition. When his family members arrived, he was shifted to a private hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

The bench of justice SS Shinde and justice VK Jadhav granted the state, liberty to recover the amount of compensation from the four police constables from Shivaji Nagar police station in Beed. The bench also directed the superintendent of police, Beed, to ensure that offence is registered against the erring policemen – Shankar Rathod, Rajaram Fufate, Narayan Misal and a police van driver. The court ordered to book all of them under section 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC and prosecuted them for murder of Shaikh Muhammed.

The state CID has also been ordered to investigate the purported custodial killing.

Apart from prosecution for murder, Rathod will also have to face contempt of court proceedings for violating guidelines laid down by the SC in DK Basu’s case for protection of prisoners from unnecessary police torture.

After Shaikh’s family approached HC complaining about his custodial death, the judges noticed that police claimed that Shaikh was apprehended in the morning at around 7am and he tried to escape from the police station at 7.45am – although he was handcuffed and tied – but there was no entry of him being brought to the police station.

The judges were further shocked to note that the suspect was not put in the lock up, but his leg was tied to a table in the police station – “like an animal” – and he was taken to his native place Koregaon, for recovery of the purportedly stolen handset, without any medical examination.

What annoyed the judges more was that nobody was informed about the apprehension of Shaikh, and that there was no entry of the vehicle in which he was taken for recovery.

The HC felt it necessary to prosecute the four for murdering Shaikh in view of the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death and the post mortem report revealed that he had sustained about 20 external injuries.