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Jail officials suspended for assault on inmates

Special Correspondent

Departmental inquiry against them under way

Jailor of Jaipur Central Jail, cop suspended
Inmates are accused in the May 2008 serial blasts

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Government has suspended the Jailor of Jaipur Central Jail, Ashok Gaur, and a police constable posted at the prison on charges of assaulting more than a dozen inmates accused in the May 2008 serial blasts here on the day of Id-ul-Fitr recently. A departmental inquiry against the jail staff is already under way.

According to official sources here, the two jail officials will remain suspended from service pending the inquiry. Deputy Jailor Bhairon Singh has been shunted out following a complaint by two of the accused to Director-General of Prisons Omendra Bharadwaj.

A relative of one of the accused in the conspiracy case, Ishaq Qureshi from Kota, lodged an FIR against the jail officials at the Lal Kothi police station here over the week-end, accusing them of thrashing the prisoners and desecrating their religious scriptures.

Sixteen persons accused in different cases of carrying out the blasts, taking part in the conspiracy and being members of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) – lodged in the Central Jail and waiting for their trial for more than a year now – were allegedly assaulted when they sought permission to offer Id prayers along with other prisoners in the jail compound.

The prison officials and policemen, accompanied by some “hard-core prisoners”, allegedly dragged the accused out of their cells on September 21 and beat them up. The alleged assault has attracted the attention of Human Rights Watch in New York, which contacted the Rajasthan Muslim Forum – an apex body of the community’s groups – here over the week-end and obtained details of the case for its follow-up action.

The FIR against the Jailor, Deputy Jailor and others has been registered under Sections 323 (causing grievous hurt), 153-A (promoting enmity on ground of religion), 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship or object) and 143 (unlawful assembly) of Indian Penal Code. The complainant in the matter is Abdul Hameed, brother of elderly physician Ishaq Qureshi.

Muslim groups in the State, which have been demanding a judicial inquiry into torture and harassment of the jail inmates for 15 days last year and again on Id this year, reacted cautiously to the latest developments and sought steps for ensuring security of the accused in the jail compound in view of action launched against the prison authorities.

The inmates told their relatives, who went to meet them on Wednesday, that they were being treated “roughly” following their complaint and kept confined to their separate cramped and dingy cells round the clock, against the earlier practice of being allowed to come out of cells within the jail premises for three hours daily.

Jail Superintendent Preeta Bhargava allegedly refused to permit the relatives to meet the accused and relented only after intervention by the D-G Prisons.

The Rajasthan Muslim Forum said Ms. Bhargava was not cooperating in the matter from the beginning and was trying to shield the accused prison officials. It demanded immediate shifting out of the Jail Superintendent to facilitate a fair and impartial investigation into the assault on prisoners.

Jamat-e-Islami Hind State president Mohammed Salim said the recent assault on the accused, all of whom have been denied bail by courts, was the second major round of their torture: “They were earlier tortured by the police to obtain their confession for a crime which they never committed.”

With the accused mired in a prolonged legal battle to prove their innocence, Mr. Salim pointed out that a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court had prescribed criminal prosecution of the jail staff for torturing the inmates in one of its judgments delivered in July this year.

The ruling has restored the legal rights of prisoners who face indignities and brutalities inside the jails.

The High Court held that the jail authorities had no authority over an inmate’s life.

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