The father of one of the prisoners has moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking action against the police. The police deny the charges terming them as “baseless”.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — An investigation by a retired high court judge has been sought into allegations that seven Muslims arrested in connection with communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh district earlier this year were assaulted by the jail staff on December 11.
The allegations were brought to the attention of the Haryana Legislative Assembly on Tuesday by Aftab Ahmed, Congress MLA from Nuh. However, the police deny the charges terming them as “baseless”.
Reports reaching here on Friday said the father of one of the prisoners has moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking action against the police.
On July 31, a clash broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Nuh during the Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra, a religious procession organised by the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The violence soon spread beyond Nuh, with neighbouring Gurugram district, in particular, witnessing widespread arson and mob attacks on Muslim homes and shops.
Shokeen is one of the Muslim men arrested in connection with the violence. His father, Khurshid, said that when he visited his son in prison on December 13, he found him in a “severely injured state”.
In an application to the court, Khurshid said that when he asked Shokeen about his condition, he said that four to five police officers beat him and other inmates, according to a report in The Indian Express.
“This was captured by the jail’s CCTV cameras, which also revealed that the prison’s STD facility was shut down,” the application said. “The staff forced Shokeen and other inmates into the prison’s flour mill where they were tortured, and were not provided any medical attention.”
The Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court in Nuh ordered a medical inspection of the inmates on Saturday, five days after the alleged incident took place, the report said. In response, the medical superintendent of the civil hospital in Mandikhera who examined them said that the accused had sustained minor injuries and their medico-legal case was done at the hospital.”
In a statement to the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court in Nuh, the jail superintendent said “no jail staff/officer has verbally abused or physically assaulted the inmates” and that they are being provided with adequate medical attention.
