A PIL petition has been filed in the Madras High Court accusing Andhra Pradesh police of having entered Tamil Nadu and arrested around 500 people last year without following any of the 11 guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.
P. Pugalenthi, director, Prisoners’ Rights Forum, a private body based in Chennai, filed the case. He alleged that the police from the neighbouring State arrested the people on various charges, detaining them in secluded locations and obtaining confessions through force and coercion without even intimating the local police.
‘Not according to law’
In an affidavit filed through his counsel M. Radhakrishnan, the petitioner said: “The persons so arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police are not being dealt with in accordance with law. It is reliably learnt that the Andhra Pradesh police never identified as police-on-duty while arresting those 500 persons without warrant.”
“The persons who effected arrest did not wear uniform. They arrest persons as per their whims and fancies, take them to unknown places, torture them, and ultimately produce before a judicial magistrate in Andhra Pradesh after a few days or a week or even a month.”
The petitioner said it was mandatory on the part of the police to follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court in D.K. Basu’s cases wherein procedures including intimation to relatives and production before a judicial magistrate within 24 hours had been contemplated.
