Bombay HC orders further probe into custodial death of youth

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct further investigation within eight weeks and file supplementary chargesheet against 10 policemen who were booked after a youth died in their custody.

The court observed that prima facie there is evidence to show that a case under section 302 (murder), 304 (ii) culpable homicide not amounting murder read with 108 (abetment) and 377 (unnatural sex) of the IPC is made out against officers of Wadala Railway Police, in whose custody the deceased, Agnello Valdaris was when he died in 2014.

“The train did not run over Valdaris, had the train ran over his body would have been cut into pieces so he did not die of accident,” observed the division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice A.M. Badar, which was hearing the petition filed in 2014 by Agnello’s father Leonard Valdaris.

The CBI has filed chargesheet against 10 policemen from the Wadala Railway Police for voluntarily causing hurt and other lesser charges. Even if the policemen are convicted under these charges they would be sentenced to maximum three years of imprisonment.

The accused policemen have claimed Agnello met with a train accident when he was trying to escape from police custody. However, his father has claimed that his son was killed by the police in custody and to hide this crime they threw his body on the railway tracks to make it look like an accidental death.

Agnello and three others were picked up by the Wadala Railway Police on charges of robbery on April 15, 2014. For the next three days they were allegedly stripped, tortured and even forced to have oral sex with each other. On April 18, Agnello died in custody while the others were released on bail on April 22.