Bhopal: A Bhopal court Monday ordered that six police personnel, a doctor at the government-run Hamidia Medical College, and a jailer of Bhopal Central Jail be booked on murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence charges in a nine-year-old custodial death case.
The court was hearing a petition filed by the mother of the deceased, 22-year-old Mohsin Radio, who was picked up by police from his Bhopal home in June 2015 for questioning in an old robbery case registered against unidentified persons. He died later that month while in custody.
The court of judicial magistrate first-class Ashish Mishra, after considering evidence and statements from 14 witnesses, observed that “Mohsin died in a place where it is difficult for a common man to see the offence and submit evidence for the same”.
The applicant (Mohsin’s family) had submitted 14 witnesses, of which three were police personnel whose statements were extremely important, while three others were doctors, the court noted.
Taking this into cognisance, the court said: “…constable Ehsan, constable Murali, constable Dinesh, constable Chironji, jailer Alok Bajpayee, Dr R.N. Sahu, sub-inspector D.N. Yadav and town inspector Manish Raj Bhadoriya prima facie are liable to be booked under Sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).”
It also ordered the eight accused to be present before it on 25 September.
While commenting on Section 197 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) that gives public servants and judicial officers protection from being booked unless prosecution sanction is obtained from the central or state government, the court said: “The benefit of Section 197 is given when an offence is committed in the line of duty. But the witnesses and evidence (in this case) nowhere highlight that the act was done while discharging their duty in public interest.”
In her appeal, Mohsin’s mother Seema alleged that on 4 June, 2015, constables Ehsan, Murali, Dinesh and Chironji, who were posted with the Bhopal Crime Branch, had demanded Rs 2 lakh after taking Mohsin forcefully to the crime branch police station.
She alleged that Mohsin was brutally beaten up by the police, with his hands and legs tied and a helmet put over his head. According to her plea, Mohsin was then handed over to the TT Nagar police station in the city, where sub-inspector Yadav and town inspector Bhadoriya gave him electric shocks. When Rs 2 lakh was not given to them, they booked Mohsin in a fraudulent case and produced him before a court on 10 June, after which he was sent to Bhopal Central Jail, she stated.
When Mohsin’s younger brother, Yasin, went to meet him in jail on 22 June, two men had to carry him to meet Yasin, and Mohsin found it difficult to speak, according to Seema’s application.
The family has alleged that Mohsin was beaten up in jail too and given electric shocks by deputy jailer Bajpayee, while the jail doctor deliberately did not give Mohsin the right medical treatment.
The family has said that on 23 June, they learnt that Mohsin had died. They reached Gwalior Mental Hospital to collect his body and found out there that Mohsin had been declared mentally unstable by Bajpayee and Dr Sahu of Hamidia Medical Hospital, who had sent him to the Gwalior facility.
Despite having suffered multiple injuries, Mohsin was ordered to be taken to Gwalior Mental Hospital and died on the way there, the application states.
Speaking to ThePrint, advocate Yawar Khan, who has fought the case for Mohsin’s mother for the past nine years, said: “It is an extremely difficult case as in such matters of custodial death, the families are in immense pressure to settle, but throughout the nine years, Mohsin’s family has stood steadfast and fought the case.”
Terming the registration of the case as just the first victory, he said that in all likelihood, it would be challenged by the accused in the upper courts.
“But getting this first order which has held each of the eight accused guilty and established their involvement will go a long way in helping to fight the case further,” Khan added.
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Judicial inquiry
Judicial magistrate Vipendra Yadav, who conducted an inquiry into Mohsin’s death, highlighted several irregularities by the jail administration in his report. For instance, CCTV footage of 23 June was not provided despite requests.
When judicial magistrate first-class Ashish Mishra began reviewing the statements of all witnesses and the medical reports available, it was noted that a Dr Azad of the Bhopal jail had recorded that on 10 June, when Mohsin was brought to the jail, he had multiple bruises on his body which showed he had been beaten up.
Dr Azad said in court that Mohsin spoke well and was not mentally unsound. Another person, Rakesh, who worked as a compounder in the jail, stated that Mohsin had informed him of being beaten up by police personnel.
The court, based on the statements of doctors and Mohsin’s medical reports, concluded that Mohsin had been beaten up by the four constables of the crime branch and police personnel from TT Nagar station before being taken to jail.
Another witness, identified as Firoz, who was a prisoner at Bhopal Central Jail along with Mohsin, told the court that Bajpayee along with other staffers of the jail had brutally thrashed Mohsin.
On 16 June, Mohsin was referred to the psychiatric ward of Hamidia Medical Hospital. There, he was treated by Dr Sahu who ordered that he be taken to the mental hospital in Gwalior.
Three police personnel, identified as Rajesh, Kamal and Amardeep, who were witnesses 7,8 and 9, were ordered to take Mohsin from Bhopal to Gwalior. In their statements to court, they said that when they reached Bhopal Central Jail at 6 am on 23 June, they found that Mohsin couldn’t speak, walk or move.
“They asked the jail authorities how they could take Mohsin in such a condition, but were told that it was their duty to take him and they should do that,” the court noted.
The three lifted him up, put him in the police bus taking him to Gwalior via the Chhattisgarh Express. They took Mohsin to JAH Hospital in Gwalior where he was declared brought dead and Dr Chandrashekar Waghmare who conducted the postmortem informed the court that Mohsin had marks on his wrists and ankles, and bruises all over his body.
Waghmare noted that his death had occurred about 24 to 72 hours earlier and considering the decomposed state of the body, it was difficult to ascertain the cause of death.
Taking account of the statements given by the three police personnel and the doctor from Gwalior, the court observed: “Since the jail authorities had realised that Mohsin was dead, they tried to shrug off their responsibility by declaring Mohsin as mentally challenged.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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