The Bombay high court on Thursday appointed two police officers of the additional commissioner of police’s rank to probe the alleged custodial death of a youth in 1994 and trace the missing witnesses
The Bombay high court on Thursday appointed two police officers of the additional commissioner of police’s rank to probe the alleged custodial death of a youth in 1994 and trace the missing witnesses of the case.
The division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed directed additional CP (crime) K.M.M. Prasanna to take steps to trace five missing witnesses and file his first report before the court on September 23.
The court also asked additional CP Pratap Singh Patankar to conduct an inquiry and find out whether or not jail authorities in Thane Prison are maintaining the register. The register is supposed to contain the details of prisoners. The bench has granted three months’ time to Mr Patankar to complete his inquiry and submit his report before the court.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a social worker N.R. Soni. Soni had written to the high court about Robert Inold Almeida’s custodial death case in 1996.
Soni’s PIL said Almeida was arrested on August 28, 1996, for allegedly assaulting his father. He was granted bail by a local court, but he could not avail the same and was ultimately remanded to judicial custody. On September 1, 1996, Almeida was found dead in his cell with several assault marks on his body. Inmates of nearby cells had purportedly seen some staffers brutally beating the accused on the previous night and some of them had given statements to a revenue officer, who inquired into the death, on record.
However during magisterial inquiry the police informed the magistrate that out of total 11 witnesses, five had gone missing after coming out of jail on bail.
