Kolkata, April 18: While he was missing since day 23 of Ramadan, Daud Sk, who hailed from the village of HouseNagar, was found dead on the third day of Eid. Disputing the police’s claim, Daud’s wife Sabina Yeasmin, ruled out suicide and suggested that it was murder while in custody. Consequently, an official complaint has been lodged with National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), reports e-Newsroom.
Daud, who sometimes worked as a coolie with truck drivers, went out in March to look for work and never returned home, according to his wife Yeasmin. The family had become used to his long absences but were shocked to be informed by the police on April 13 that they needed to identify Daud’s corpse and attend his autopsy where it emerged that he had been arrested and held at Jangipur Sub-Correctional Home without their knowledge.
When questioned about the charges against Daud, his widow expressed ignorance, highlighting a lack of transparency in the circumstances of his arrest. Sub-inspector Deepak Kr Das deferred inquiries to Sub-inspector Abhijit Sarkar, who disclosed that Daud was arrested in connection with a Fake Indian Currency note case and subsequently sent to Jangipur sub-correctional home after appearing in court.
Yeasmin and Khurshid Alam of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) have raised doubts about the police narrative, suspecting that Daud may have been subjected to torture leading to his death. Alam questioned the police notice that claimed Daud was sent to the hospital for treatment after allegedly committing suicide in jail.
Md Yusuf Hussain, a neighbor who went with Daud’s family when they were identifying his body, said there were differences between what the police told them and what he saw. He saw some marks on Daud’s neck that did not match with the way he was killed by hanging himself using a gamcha.
When this case of Fake Indian Currency note came up for initial investigation, none of these FIRs had Daud’s name included in it, thus raising questions of framing. Yusuf suggested that Daud might have been falsely implicated and subjected to custodial torture which turned out to be fatal.
The complaint registered under diary number 5833/IN/2024 has drawn attention from the NHRC.
There are significant problems of custodial deaths both judicial and those experienced under police custody in Bengal as evident from the high number of cases filed before West Bengal Human Rights Commission that registered 458 diaries from 2017 to 2021.