Civil rights group demands inquiry into terror suspect's murder in Pune jail

A day after terror suspect Mohammed Qateel Siddiqui was murdered in the high-security ward of Yerwada Jail in Pune allegedly by two of his fellow inmates, a Delhi-based civil rights group, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), has approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) asking for an impartial probe and compensation to Siddiqui's family. It has also asked the NHRC to ensure that an FIR is registered against the officials responsible.

In his complaint to the NHRC, APCR secretary Akhlak Ahmad said: "The police statement that the murder was committed by his fellow inmates Sharad Mohol and Amol Bhalerao after a petty dispute is suspicious and seems fabricated. We strongly feel this was a planned murder of an Indian citizen who was in judicial custody and belonged to the religious minority community."

Siddiqui's murder was part of the long series of human rights violations of under trials in Maharashtra, added Mr. Ahmad. The APCR has also sent the complaint to the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister as well as the Home Minster of Maharashtra, State Human Rights Commission, Maharashtra, and the National Minority Commission.

Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, president of the All-India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM), an umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations, said: "Despite several months after his arrest, the agencies had not been able to file a charge sheet against him, while he had been consistently tortured in custody in order to get a confessional statement from him, as it happens now in almost all such cases."

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Mr. Khan also alleged that Siddiqui was murdered as he was of no use after the agencies took his fake confessional statement, which would now be used in courts against other accused and he would no longer be there to deny and refute the forced confession attributed to him.

Rejecting the suspension of the Jailor of the Yerwada Jail and a CID inquiry into Siddiqui's murder, Dr. Khan demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge, adding, "The jailor will be reinstated soon and the CID inquiry will not go against the responsible police officers".

Source: The Hindu