At a time the Guntur police torture incident of 1983 makes it to Oscar through the Tamil flick Visaranai , back home a victim in similar case of illegal detention and torture files a case against the police, a finance firm and a judge.
The methods of interrogation and human rights violations remained unchanged in police stations even after three decades of the real incident based on which the movie was shot.
The movie plot of Visaranai was authored by one of the victims M. Chandrakumar himself on the 13-day police torture in a Guntur police station for a crime he and his three other friends never committed. Chandrakumar had documented his heart-wrenching experience into a book titled Lock Up 10 years ago and it was taken as the main theme by director Vetrimaran to make Visaranai .
The movie was produced by hero Dhanush and it has bagged numerous national awards. The impressive plot even made the Film Division of India nominate it as India’s official entry to Best Foreign Language Film category at the 89th Academy Awards to be held in 2017.
The docu-drama crime thriller Visaranai is all about police custody, interrogation and vulnerabilities of the gullible people such as street-dwellers, rickshaw-pullers and small-time workers. It is also about the police, who are constantly under pressure to extract confession from the accused.
As the plot goes, the police, who were desperately looking out for Tamil-speaking suspects, nab the four Tamil workers from a local park and torture them for confession in a theft case. The accused were released after a 13-day gruesome ‘interrogation’ and court trial.
Visaranai of Vijayawada
Interestingly, over three decades after the Visaranai episode, similar case has come alive in Vijayawada, about 30 km from Guntur. The life experience of the victim is a classic example of how the system can push the vulnerable to the corner.
N. Satyanarayana, a small-time flexi-printing businessman from Vijayawada, was kidnapped, threatened at gunpoint, trapped in false default cases and pushed to the corner by the finance, legal and police systems.
“Bajaj Finance has filed false cases in 2010, alleging that I took 14 loans within six months which I never took. I was kidnapped by the company staff and the Patamata police and later was tortured for 17 days during remand. At the same time, my house in Gandhinagar was literally burgled by the police who took cash, ACs, fridge and TV,” said 33-year-old Mr. Satyanarayana. Ultimately, the victim was acquitted after six years of torture and legal struggle.
“I’m scared, I may be killed any time. I tried committing suicide thrice but failed. But I’m determined to fight till justice is done,” he added. He submitted all the legal and other evidences of his innocence to The Hindu .
Bajaj’s reaction
When contacted, Bajaj Finance General Counsel Babu Rao said, “The file related to his documents and evidences has been missing for over five years. I think, we have all the details and documents. The case is sub judice .”
Nyaya Parirakshana Seva Samithi’s A.P. president V. Satyanarayana, who is closely following the case, says that the courts should have taken up the case suo motu , instead, the victim was pushed to the extreme by the system. The victim N. Satyanarayana has now filed civil and criminal cases against the police, judge and Bajaj Finance in district courts in Vijayawada and in High Court in Hyderabad.
Human rights scenario unchanged
Human rights activist and former faculty of Hyderabad Central University, Professor Haragopal, says the politician-police-businessmen nexus gave a free hand to the police which is the root cause of such violations that continued unabated even today. “Small-time workers and lower caste people are the frequent victims. Even in the famous Rohit Vemula case in University of Hyderabad, Political Science department faculty member Yesu Ratnam was slapped by a constable. The political class or the State has not made any serious attempt to reform the system,” Prof. Haragopal said.
