Haryana rights commission recommends Rs 7 lakh compensation in Panipat custodial death

Bhartesh Singh Thakur  
Tribune News Service  
Chandigarh, March 5  

Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) asked the state police department on Friday to pay Rs 7 lakh as compensation to the family of a man who died in police custody in 2018.

A panel of Justice SK Mittal (retd) and member Deep Bhatia said that the victim, identified as Rajesh, a man arrested in connection with a case of murder and dacoity in 2018, died an “unnatural death due to his detention in CIA-II Panipat”.  

Rajesh was arrested on December 11, 2018.  He was taken to Panipat’s Covil Hospital, which in turn sent him to Rohtak’s Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science. He died of his injuries at the hospital on December 14, 2018.  

The policeman who arrested him, Inspector Yogesh Kumar, now faces a murder charge in the case.

Rajesh’s father Rattan Singh had appealed to the commission for compensation.  

The commission observed records of Rajesh’s treatment by the PGIMS’s doctor Dr Piyush Jain showed the cause of death as “Subacute Brain Infarction and its complications”. In addition, the records showed seven injuries, described in the autopsy report as antemortem and individually and cumulatively non-fatal. 

“He (Rajesh) at the time of his death was 32-33 years of age having two children. Moreover, after his arrest, he was not produced before the Illaqa Magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest as is the requirement of law,” observed the Commission.  “The death of an accused/prisoner in jail/police custody is not a temporary phase but created a long-lasting impact on the lives of the victim’s family members,” said the HHRC.  

The commission gave the state government eight weeks to release the money and said it was entitled to recover the compensation money from policemen accused in the case “wrongdoers Inspector Yogesh and his accomplices”.  

“It is also recommended that the case of murder against Inspector Yogesh and other accused be got conducted from a senior police officer having impeccable integrity and character besides carrying out departmental proceedings,” said the order.   

The Commission said, “It may also be mentioned here that any statement made by a person before a police officer during criminal investigation exonerating culpability of an accused named in the FIR should not be taken as a hurdle in nailing the perpetrator”.