INDIA: Man is allegedly tortured to death by police after refusing to pay bribe in West Bengal

[NOTICE: To facilitate your intervention of the urgent appeals issued by the AHRC, we have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of all the Indian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the authorities are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from MASUM, a local partner organisation in West Bengal, India that 32 year-old Krishnapada Das was allegedly tortured to death while in custody after he refused to pay a bribe to police on 9 February 2007. When Mr. Krishnapada was arrested by the Pathor Pratima Police, he was also never brought before the Magistrate court. It is alleged that the police officers had demanded a bribe from the victim’s father to withdraw the charges. However, when his father refused to pay, Mr. Krishnapada was killed.  Meanwhile, roughly 30 protesters where beaten by police when they demanded an investigation and no post-mortem has been provided to the family after two months.

CASE DETAILS:

Mr. Krishnapada Das was a resident of Purba Dwarikapur Village, South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India when he was arrested by the Pathor Pratima Police on 9 February 2007. The officers arrested the victim under section 498A, 306, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code for subjecting his wife to cruelty and abetting the commission of a suicide.

It is alleged that at around 7:30 pm on February 9, the victim’ father Mr. Vanu Das, received several telephone calls from the Phathor Pratima Police demanding Rs. 6000 (USD 137) to withdraw the charges against the victim, a demand that was to be turned down. Deplorably, later that evening at around midnight, the victim was found hanging inside the lock-up from the bar of the window.

The next morning at 7:00 am, local leader Mr. Kanailal Das, the officer-in-charge and three to four police officers of Pathor Pratima police informed Mr. Vanu of his son’s death and asked him to go to the police station. After the victim’s father and uncle went to the police station, the police brought the body to the Pathorpratima Block Health Center at 3:00 pm. Before the transfer, both Mr. D. K. Mitra (Sub divisional Police Officer) and Mr. Sanjay Bhattacharya (Sub Divisional Officer) inspected the body outside the police station in the presence of local people. According to witnesses identified as Mr. Suniti Bhuia, Ms. Sila Raut of Ramganga village and the person on duty at the ferry service at Pathor Pratima, Krishnapada’s body and face had sustained many injuries. However, the police did not report any of the injuries at the time of their investigation.

According to Mr. D. K. Mitra, Sub-divisional Police Office “at the presence of Sub divisional Officer named Sanjay Bhattacharya and Block development Officer, the victim’s dead body was vediographed during investigation”. It is also alleged by the police that no injuries were found in the victim’s dead body in the video photographs. According to Kaliprasad Mukhopadhyay, Block Medical Officer (Health), no injury was found except the marks from the noose on the victim’s throat.

On top of this, on the morning of February 10, many local people had gathered in front of the Pathor Pratima police station to protest the custodial death and torture of Mr Krishnapada. Pathor Pratima police then began beating them mercilessly with sticks. Due to the brutal beatings, around 30 people were seriously injured and some were arrested, while the injured were admitted to local hospital.

Meanwhile, the Pathor Pratima police also sent the body miles away to Kolkata for the post-mortem, rather than to the local facility at Diamond Harbor. 
 
Members of the victim’s family have lodged written complaints with the Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural), South 24 Parganas district; however, no action has yet been taken to find out the alleged true cause of death or to bring the perpetrators to justice.

On 8 March 2007, Mr. Vanu Das, father of the victim also lodged a complaint with the Chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission with the support of Robin Bag, Member of Lakshi Janardanpur Gram Panchayet. Again, no action has been initiated to date.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

In the course of development of a society, each country develops various kinds of institutions to run their societal affairs smoothly and to ensure the development of the community through peaceful means. The development of a democratic form of government and its institutions at different levels are the outcome of these initiatives. Indian society is no exception to this phenomenon.

However, the Indian ruling class has miserably failed to show the minimum amount of courage and conviction to overcome the social divisions within society that are still based on a feudal structure and which is the root cause of all backwardness in Indian society. One must understand that the extremely obscure bureaucracy and corrupt policing is the natural outcome of feudal social divisions. Also, Indian social institutions lack transparency which breeds corruption and offers no redress to victims or their families (Please see: UA-65-2003; UA-329-2006; UA-340-2006; UA-349-2006).

Such inhuman treatment like custodial torture, often resulting in death can not be tolerable in any civilized society. From time to time, the unpleasant incidents and inhuman treatments to which we come across are just small reflections of those horrible things which are taking place below the surface. 
Taking into account the increasing numbers of custodial deaths in India, the Code of Criminal Procedure (amendment) Act, 2005 was passed. According to subsection (1-A) of section 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code;

“Where – any person dies or disappears, while such person is in the custody of the police or in any other custody authorised by the magistrate or the court, under this Code in addition to the inquiry or investigation held by the police, an inquiry shall be held by the Judicial Magistrate or the Metropolitan Magistrate, as the case may be, within whose local jurisdiction the offence has been committed.”

But it is of no use in West Bengal because of corrupt policing and the obscure bureaucracy. Police are enjoying absolute impunity in the State. Even the family members of the victim have not been provided with the post-mortem report after two months since the incident. This demonstrates that the West Bengal Government does not have any respect for article 21 of Indian Constitution which gives guarantees of the “Right to Life” of every individual. To know more about the tenacious and authoritarian acts of the West Bengal Government, please see a recently issued statement by the AHRC: AS-059-2007.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please send a letter to the relevant authorities mentioned below urging for an immediate and thorough investigation into this case in particular and also into the aspects of general policing in India so that disciplinary actions are taken against the police officers if they are found responsible for breach of duty.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER