The police have been requested to ensure that innocent persons are not arrested in connection with the violence leading to injuries to several police personnel and lathi charge on the agitators in Ambur on June 27,
A. Marx, Chairman of the National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations told newspersons here on Friday, disclosing the details of the interim findings of a fact-finding enquiry into the incidents.
It may be recalled police resorted to lathi-charge when the agitators demanding the arrest of Martin Premraj, Inspector of Police, Pallikonda pelted stones at the policemen who were maintaining law and order, and set fire to several police vehicles and private vehicles and stoned buses.
The agitators, mostly members of the Thowheed Jamath and Thamizhaga Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam alleged that Mr. Premraj was responsible for the custodial torture of Shameel Ahmed, a former shoe factory employee in a woman missing case, leading to his death in a Chennai hospital on June 26.
Mr. Marx along with Mohammed Shipli, social activist involved in campaigns against the violation of human rights of the minority Muslims visited the place in Pallikonda where Shameel Ahmed was allegedly tortured during police interrogation, and the families of persons arrested in connection with the Ambur violence. The relatives of Shameel who went to meet him during custody had stated to the team that they heard him shout during custody.
The confederation chairman said that when he was speaking to P.K. Senthilkumari, Superintendent of Police, Vellore district at the Ambur Town Police Station on Friday along with four other persons who showed him the spot of custodial torture in Pallikonda, some other police officials arrested them in his presence and put them in the police lock up.
On his objection, they were released from the lock-up on the instructions of the SP, he said.
Mr. Marx said that the SP told the team that the police arrested only those persons whom they knew had indulged in violence.
He said that according to his knowledge, 50 per cent of the arrested persons were innocent.
Asked why the team did not enquire into the human rights violations against the police personnel injured in the violence,
Mr. Marx said that the police department was conducting an enquiry into the violence.
Intelligence failure
“Our organisation cannot waste the minimum resources it has in conducting an enquiry into the human rights violations against the police personnel.
We will give importance only to human rights violations against the vulnerable sections of the society such as minorities and Dalits. There has been an intelligence failure in the incidents.
Police should have mobilised force to prevent the violence, which they failed to do”, he said. The team would meet the injured police personnel and others connected with the incidents next week and release its final report to the media and to the police department, he said.
