Taking strong view of the destruction of crucial piece of evidence, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday transferred the investigation into the death of a youth picked up by the Wadala Railway Police, to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The petition filed by the deceased youth’s father has alleged that the youth died in custody due to railway police excesses. The police had refuted the allegation and had said that the youth died after coming under a train when he was trying to escape them.
On Tuesday, they informed the court that the CCTV footage showing the escape of the youth from custody was destroyed. The court had directed the railway police during the last hearing to bring a copy of the CCTV footage. “We want to see it,” the division bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and P.D. Kode had said.
The court came down heavily on the railway police for their inability to produce the footage. It said that the footage might have been destroyed because it did not favour the railway police.
It observed that Maharashtra had one of the highest number of custodial deaths in the country and the police attitude towards investigation only showed how they could not be trusted anymore.
Agnello Valdaris, 25, had died after the railway police had picked him and three of his friends for petty crimes. Police said that Valdaris had previous cases of petty crimes against him. The friends later gave statements saying they were tortured by the police and even sexually abused. They alleged that Valdaris died due to the torture.
