The Delhi High Court on Wednesday took strong exception to the incident of murder of an undertrial in Tihar jail, saying it was a “serious issue”.
Justice Prathiba M. Singh ordered the prison authorities and the police to submit a status report indicating whether an FIR has been lodged in connection with the incident and if so, the status of the probe.
“This is a serious matter... I don’t know how something like this can happen. It is shocking,” Justice Singh remarked while hearing a plea of the father of the victim seeking ₹5 crore as compensation for the custodial death of his son.
The court also asked the authorities whether CCTV footage of the prison cell where the incident took place has been preserved.
Ali Sher, in his petition filed through advocate Vishal Raj Sehijpal, said that on November 30 last year he received a call from police officers informing him about the sudden death of his 23-year-old son, Dilsher Azad, in jail. Mr. Sher said despite repeated requests, he was not being told the real cause of death of his son. It was only after the intervention of his lawyer that he was informed that his son was knifed to death inside the Tihar jail.
“The present case raises serious questions on security inside Tihar Central Jail... This is a serious case of breach of security which led to murder of son of the petitioner [Mr. Sher] inside his barrack in Jail No. 3 of Tihar Jail and further the use of knives for such gruesome murder puts whole administration/respondents in the dock,” the petition said.
“It is amply clear that there has been a gross security lapse in the Tihar Jail complex on account of which the petitioner has lost his son who was in custody of the jail administration being undertrial prisoner,” the plea added.
Advocate Sehijpal argued, “Although judicial enquiry has been ordered into the matter but till date nothing has happened, and the petitioner has never been called to join any proceedings into the enquiry of murder of his son.”
The High Court will hear the case again on March 5.
