New Delhi: Questions have been raised around the death of a 45-year-old man while he was in police custody on January 20, in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal. Protests were seen by angry locals and members of the man’s family, outside the Raisatti police outpost.
Mohammad Irfan was a fruit vendor. His family said that police torture and the fact that he was not allowed to take his medicines on time led to his death. Police have denied these allegations and claimed that cops gave him medicine and sent him to the hospital with his son as his health deteriorated, adding that he may have died on the way to the hospital.
In a video, the Sambhal superintendent of police, Krishan Bishnoi, said that prima facie it seems that the man died of cardiac arrest. The allegation that the man was denied medication, he said, “is baseless.”
“In fact, he was given the medicine by the chowki in-charge himself. The father-son duo were at the police station only for a few minutes. The cause of the death will be ascertained after post-mortem,” he said.
‘Police abused family members, assaulted Irfan’
Irfan is the sole bread-winner of his family. He is survived by his wife and five children.
Speaking to The Wire, his 18-year-old son Afnan alleged that four policemen led by the outpost in-charge, Jitender Kumar, entered their house around 12.30 pm on January 20 to interrogate Irfan in connection with a family dispute. He further alleged that the cops verbally abused members of the family and physically assaulted his father.
“They verbally abused my father and assaulted him as my family pleaded with them to stop. When my mother and other members of the family tried to shield him, they forcibly took him away to the Raisatti police chowki,” Afnan said.
Afnan added that Irfan was a heart patient and had recently undergone surgery at the Crest Hospital in Moradabad.
“We tried to reason with the police but they did not listen to us. They also verbally abused the women of our family,” he said.
Afnan stressed that by the time police took Irfan away, it was the time for him to take his medicines. “Every dose is timed. This was critical for his recovery. But they dragged him away and didn’t let him take his medicine,” he said.
Afnan added that he followed the police and his father to the outpost. “When I reached, I found him lying on the floor breathing abnormally. He died in my arms,” he said.
Afnan said that he took his father to a doctor a few hundred metres away and was told that Irfan had died. “On hearing this, I returned to the police outpost with my father’s body. There was nobody.” Soon, he added, a different group of policemen arrived on the spot and took them to the Asian Hospital where Irfan was formally declared dead.
‘Don’t spread rumours’: Police
Calling the man’s death murder, Zia-ur-Rehman Barq, the Samajwadi Party MP from Sambhal posted on X in Hindi, “This is the police’s slogan, ‘your safety is our resolve.’ I wonder what kind of safety and resolve it is when a person dies in police custody.” He further wrote that this is not the first stain on the police’s record and it may not be the last.
Responding to Barq in Hindi from their official X handle, the Sambhal police wrote that when Irfan was brought to the police outpost for questioning, his son was present. “When his health deteriorated”, the statement said, “he was given medicine by the local police, and he was immediately taken to the hospital along with his son. He probably died on the way, which can be clearly seen in the CCTV camera of the police post.”
“The spot,” police said in their response, “has been inspected by senior officials. The local police station has taken the body in its custody and sent it for postmortem. Further legal action is underway.”
Warning Barq of legal action if his post is not deleted, Sambhal police added in their X post, “Despite being in a responsible position, you have made a misleading post. Please do not spread rumours. Cooperate with the police and administration in maintaining law and order in the sensitive Sambhal district.”
Reports across states
But outrage has not ebbed. “Is it not the responsibility of the UP government,” asked Chandra Shekhar Aazad, “to ensure accountability of the police machinery and protection of human rights?”
“This incident shows the failure of the Yogi government, where the protectors of the law are abusing it,” Ravan wrote in a statement on X, saying that many incidents of police brutality have been reported in the state recently.
Data released by the Union home ministry between April 1, 2020, and March 1, 2022, says that Uttar Pradesh accounted for 21.2% of all custodial deaths, the highest from any state in India.
In July 2024, UP director general of police Prashant Kumar had issued strict guidelines – pre-arrest screenings for serious illnesses, psychological interrogation instead of use of force, and recording the entire series of events if a suspect’s health deteriorates in custody – to curb the menace of custodial deaths.
