MUMBAI: A special MCOCA court has referred an alleged custodial torture case to the principal judge of the sessions court for appropriate action after a court-ordered medical examination found multiple injuries, including a burn injury to the genital region of an accused arrested by the Sakinaka police.
The accused, Ali Husain Ali Hasan Khan alias Kaddu, was booked by Sakinaka police in a violent robbery case in which the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) had been invoked. During an interaction with special judge VD Kedar in his chambers, Khan alleged that police personnel assaulted him on various parts of his body, including his genitalia, and inserted an object into his anal region. He also alleged that he was assaulted on other parts of his body and that police threatened to implicate his family in false cases to force a confession. The court also directed the investigating officer to preserve CCTV footage from the Sakinaka police station lock-up, corridors, entry and exit points to interrogation rooms and transport routes, besides digital records and logs, station and lock-up registers, arrest, remand and interrogation records, and vehicle and escort details, wherever available and legally applicable.
He was subsequently produced before the court with the medical papers and remanded to judicial custody till October 12.
Until the examination was completed and the report received, Khan was not to be handed back to “the custody of the investigating officer or to the custody of any police officer connected with the investigation”, so that he remained free from “any further influence, intimidation or interference”. The court said that, under the criminal manual’s procedure concerning allegations of trauma in custody, it was sending the principal judge a detailed report with the roznamas from Thursday and Saturday, its orders and the medical reports, “for information and for such action as may be considered appropriate”. On Thursday, when he was produced for remand, he told the court that the police had tortured him for about three days.
Police personnel involved in the investigation had been barred from the examination, except where hospital staff deemed security personnel absolutely necessary. The medical officer was directed to submit the report in a sealed cover directly to the court, without routing it through the investigating officer or any police officer connected with the case. The court has expressly stopped short of deciding who caused the injuries or how they were sustained.
“At this stage, however, this court does not record any findings as to the person responsible for causing the above-stated injuries or the precise circumstances in which the injuries were caused,” the judge said, adding that the matter required appropriate investigation in accordance with the law.
