Srinagar: A special CBI court on Thursday here granted five days’ custody to eight Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel arrested for inflicting “brutal and inhuman custodial torture” on a fellow police constable two years ago, officials said.
The CBI will subject eight officers to exhaustive questioning during the period to ascertain the roles of each accused in torturing Constable Khursheed Ahmad Chohan for six days on suspicion of helping drug peddlers.
The agency had arrested Deputy Superintendent of Police Aijaz Ahmad Naiko, Sub-Inspector Riyaz Ahmad, Jahangir Ahmad, Mohammad Yunus, Shakir Ahmad, Tanveer Ahmad, Altaf Hussain and Shahnawaj on Wednesday night, they said.
They were produced before the CBI court here which sent them to police custody for five days, they said.
In its FIR registered on the orders of the Supreme Court, the central agency had booked five others, who were then posted at the Joint Interrogation Centre, Kupwara, the officials said.
During the investigation, the CBI found the role of two more police personnel for aiding the alleged inhuman treatment meted out to Chohan and being uncooperative in the probe, they said.
The victim, who was posted in Baramulla, was summoned through a signal communication on February 17, 2023, to report before the Kupwara SSP ostensibly for investigation in connection with a narcotics case.
On arrival, he was handed over to the Joint Interrogation Centre, where Naiko, Riyaz Ahmad and others tortured Khursheed for six days with iron rods and wooden sticks, besides inflicting heavy electric shocks on him and mutilation of his genitals, the wife has alleged in her complaint, which is now a part of the FIR.
“…finally on February 26, 2023, the private parts of Khursheed were cut off, besides iron rods inserted in his private parts continuously for six days. Khursheed was subjected to severe torture and red pepper was inserted in his rectum and also given electric shocks,” the complaint said.
“He was admitted to SKIMS Hospital at 2.48 pm on February 26, 2023 where his dismembered genitalia were brought to the hospital in a separate plastic bag by a sub-inspector, a fact that shocked our conscience,” the Supreme Court had observed while handing over the case to the CBI.
The CBI FIR was registered on the basis of the complaint filed by Khursheed’s wife, who was running from pillar to post seeking a probe into the alleged atrocities against her husband.
Khursheed had approached the Supreme Court with a chilling petition, describing his ordeal after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court rejected his plea seeking a CBI probe.
Handing over the case to the CBI, the apex court noted that the high court “grossly erred in failing to exercise its constitutional obligation of protecting the fundamental rights of a citizen, his dignity and right to life”.
“It failed to consider the gravity of offences committed as well as the influence that could be exerted by accused persons being police officials,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said.
The apex court also ordered the payment of Rs 50 lakh in compensation to Khursheed, which shall be recoverable from the officer(s) concerned, against whom a departmental proceeding shall be initiated upon the conclusion of the investigation by the CBI.
The Supreme Court outrightly rejected the claims of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir that the injuries were the result of a suicide attempt by the victim.
In a scathing judgment, the top court noted that the “unprecedented gravity” of this case involving “brutal and inhuman custodial torture”, characterised by the “complete mutilation” of the appellant’s genitalia, represents one of the “most barbaric instances of police atrocity which the State is trying to defend and cover up with all-pervasive power”.
“The medical evidence conclusively establishes that such injuries are impossible to be self-inflicted. The respondent’s (UT of Jammu and Kashmir) theory of suicide attempt crumbles under scrutiny when examined against the timeline and the medical evidence,” it said. (With PTI Inputs)
