In Ghaziabad’s prisons, pay up or pay the price

Families claim that Ghaziabad police have to be bribed to ensure prisoners aren’t tortured in custody

Nishant Goel

November 14, 2013

                We’re now bribed to ensure that the person in custody is not beaten in lockup’

‘When we arrest someone for interrogation, the family members are ready to pay 10-20 thousand rupees’
These statements by two policemen posted at different police stations of Ghaziabad district in Uttar Pradesh reveal how money is being made in the name of policing. When asked why there is such terror of the police in the district, a sub-inspector responds, “A number of deaths in custody have cast a spell of terror among people and the police take advantage of it.”
In a judgment passed in 2010, the Supreme Court declared that policemen found guilty of crime deserve more severe punishment than a regular criminal because they are the upholders of law and must preserve its sanctity. The constable accused of castrating a man in custody was sentenced to 5 years in jail. Criticizing the psychology of the police, the Court said that our democracy had no place for illegal methods like third degree.
But there is no stopping custodial violence. Statistics from the National Human Rights Commission reveal that in the past three years 417 deaths have taken place in police custody and 4285 in judicial custody. In 2005, an amendment in CrPC provided for a judicial investigation in case a person dies, goes missing or is raped during custody. But this has not restrained the police.
According to a sub-inspector posted in the area across Hindan River, Ghaziabad is like Dubai for the police department with good opportunities to make the extra buck. The amount received for not torturing men in custody is distributed among shareholders ranging from the highest management to lower level figures of authority.
Ghaziabad has witnessed half a dozen deaths in custody within the past one and a half years, three of which are quite recent cases. In July this year, Lakhan Saxena was arrested from Vijay Nagar in Ghaziabad. He was accused of throwing acid on a married woman. The police arrested him the next day on 28 July and took him to the police station. It was later reported that he had hanged himself in the toilet of the jail. He was rushed to a local hospital where he succumbed to death. Saxena’s brother Ramsharan alleges that he died because of police torture. Five policemen were suspended in the case.
In June, another similar incident took place in Ghaziabad’s Kavi Nagar police station. The police had arrested a truck driver, Shakeel, on theft charges. He later died in police custody. When his family protested, the government hastily compensated them with 5 lakh rupees and 9 policemen were suspended. A case of murder was also registered against them. Shakeel’s father Khaleel says that on 13 June the police came to his house at around 10:30 in the morning and arrested his son instead of their neighbour. He says, “We told them that my son was not the one they were looking for but they assured us that they will let him go after a brief interrogation. The next day we reached the police station and met Shakeel. He was scared and pleaded us to get him out or the police would kill him.” A local resident, Mohammed, alleges that the SHO Sudhir Tyagi demanded Rs 80,000 as bribe for releasing Shakeel. When they told him that they could arrange for only Rs 10,000, the police turned them away. According to the police, Shakeel fell ill on the night of 14 June. He was taken to the nearby Sarvodya Hospital where doctors referred him to Delhi’s GTB hospital because of his serious condition. He succumbed to death on the way.
The DIG, Meerut Range, Satyanarayan says that he was wanted in several cases of vehicle-theft and had confessed to involvement in many cases while in custody. According to him, the police were taking him to Ferozabad to recover stolen vehicles when he fell ill on the way and died. When asked about marks of injury found on his body in the post mortem, he said that he was suffering from TB

                 A Wayward Rocket

BJP digs up the ISRO spy case, a scientist faces a bitter past

Minu Ittyipe

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The Spy Who Never Was

• December 1994 ISRO spy scandal hits headlines. Scientists Nambi Narayanan and D. Sasikumaran accused of selling cryogenic technology. Two Maldivian women dragged into the case.
• 1995 Kerala CM Karunakaran resigns
• 1996 CBI clears Narayanan’s name, reinstated in ISRO
• 1998 SC acquits all accused
• 1999 Narayanan files compensation suit
• 2001 NHRC orders state govt to pay Rs 1 crore compensation
• 2012 HC orders immediate payment of interim relief, Rs 10 lakh paid
• 2013 BJP rakes up issue in its tirade against R.B. Sreekumar

***

Politics has a habit of dredging up old dirt. The scandal that shook the political and scientific establishment in Kerala long ago—the 1994 ISRO spy case—is back in news. The case had not only ruined the careers of senior scientists Nambi Naraya­nan and D. Sasikumaran but also led to the fall of the K. Karu­nakaran-led Con­gress governm­ent and cast aspersions on former DGP Ramon Srivastava. The charges against the scientists were dismissed in ’96 and was thrown out by the Sup­reme Court in ’98. Activist-lawyer A. Jayashankar says, “It was a conspiracy between certain media hou­ses and groups within the Con­gress. The media blew it out of proportion. It was tragic that good scientists like Nara­yanan and Sasi­kumaran were dragged into this.”
A decade and a half later, it’s the BJP’s turn to use the story. Sore at former Gujarat DGP R.B. Sreekumar testifying against the Modi government in the fake encounter cases—potential dynamite it wants badly to defuse—it has stumbled on his controversial role (as an IB official) while investigating the ISRO case. Sree­kumar has been charged by many—including by the CBI—of not conducting a fair probe; some even accuse him of cooking up charges against the scientists. The BJP alleges that Sreekumar’s role as an upright cop speaking the truth is just payback to the UPA for helping hush up his culpability in the ISRO case.
Amidst this political wrangle, Nambi Narayanan finds himself caught in the spotlight again. Speaking from Thiruvan­anthapuram, Narayanan says, “My career and life was ruined because of a concocted story by Sibi Mathews (present chief information commissioner) and Sreekumar. Even though my name was cleared by the courts, not a single Kerala CM wanted to hear my version.” Then he makes an interesting revelation: one morning in September, a BJP aide called up Narayanan to tell him that Narendra Modi, who was in Ker­ala, wanted to talk to him. “The meeting barely lasted 10 minutes,” says Naraya­nan. “Modi wanted to know more about my case. He hugged me and said it was the most unfortunate thing that could happen to anyone. I am a scientist and not bothered about  politics, but I want justice and compensation for the years I have lost.”
In December 1994, Nambi Nar­ayanan, a cryogenic scientist at ISRO and a leading expert of indigenous rocket technology, was charged with selling cryog­enic technology to foreign operatives. Narayanan was thrown into prison for 50 days (and tor­tured, he alleges, by Sreekumar’s men) and his reputation des­t­r­oyed. And true to any spy thriller, an essential ingredient, women, was added to sex it up. The case spelt doom for ISRO’s cryogenic programme too. The GSLV rocket based on cryogenic technology has still not been launched.
Narayanan, who took his master’s in chemical rocket propulsion from Princeton University in 1969, and worked under Vikram Sara­bhai, Satish Dhawan and U.R. Rao at ISRO, was a broken man by the end of the ordeal. His relatives speak of his deep dejection after being falsely implicated, and how he lost all interest in the space programme that had once circumscribed his life.
After the CBI cleared his name and the Supreme Court too acquitted all the accused in the spy case, Narayanan was reinstated in ISRO. In 1999, he filed a compensation suit; the respondents included the state and Union government and IB officials, one of them being Sreekumar. In 2001, the National Human Rights Commission headed by retired SC judge J.S. Verma ordered the Kerala government to pay Rs 10 lakh as interim immediate relief. In 2012, the Kerala government dropped charges against the police officers for ‘unprofessional conduct’ in the ISRO case, something a CBI probe had recommended.
The BJP’s raking up the ISRO spy case will not return one of India’s top rocket scientists the best years of his career. What it can do is prompt the state government to overlook the bitterness of a long-settled legal tangle and settle the issue in a humane manner with him. The politics is another matter.

                 A Wayward Rocket

BJP digs up the ISRO spy case, a scientist faces a bitter past

Minu Ittyipe

	COMMENTS PRINT More Sharing Services Share on facebook Share on pinterest_share Share on twitter Share on email
Text Size

The Spy Who Never Was

• December 1994 ISRO spy scandal hits headlines. Scientists Nambi Narayanan and D. Sasikumaran accused of selling cryogenic technology. Two Maldivian women dragged into the case.
• 1995 Kerala CM Karunakaran resigns
• 1996 CBI clears Narayanan’s name, reinstated in ISRO
• 1998 SC acquits all accused
• 1999 Narayanan files compensation suit
• 2001 NHRC orders state govt to pay Rs 1 crore compensation
• 2012 HC orders immediate payment of interim relief, Rs 10 lakh paid
• 2013 BJP rakes up issue in its tirade against R.B. Sreekumar

***

Politics has a habit of dredging up old dirt. The scandal that shook the political and scientific establishment in Kerala long ago—the 1994 ISRO spy case—is back in news. The case had not only ruined the careers of senior scientists Nambi Naraya­nan and D. Sasikumaran but also led to the fall of the K. Karu­nakaran-led Con­gress governm­ent and cast aspersions on former DGP Ramon Srivastava. The charges against the scientists were dismissed in ’96 and was thrown out by the Sup­reme Court in ’98. Activist-lawyer A. Jayashankar says, “It was a conspiracy between certain media hou­ses and groups within the Con­gress. The media blew it out of proportion. It was tragic that good scientists like Nara­yanan and Sasi­kumaran were dragged into this.”
A decade and a half later, it’s the BJP’s turn to use the story. Sore at former Gujarat DGP R.B. Sreekumar testifying against the Modi government in the fake encounter cases—potential dynamite it wants badly to defuse—it has stumbled on his controversial role (as an IB official) while investigating the ISRO case. Sree­kumar has been charged by many—including by the CBI—of not conducting a fair probe; some even accuse him of cooking up charges against the scientists. The BJP alleges that Sreekumar’s role as an upright cop speaking the truth is just payback to the UPA for helping hush up his culpability in the ISRO case.
Amidst this political wrangle, Nambi Narayanan finds himself caught in the spotlight again. Speaking from Thiruvan­anthapuram, Narayanan says, “My career and life was ruined because of a concocted story by Sibi Mathews (present chief information commissioner) and Sreekumar. Even though my name was cleared by the courts, not a single Kerala CM wanted to hear my version.” Then he makes an interesting revelation: one morning in September, a BJP aide called up Narayanan to tell him that Narendra Modi, who was in Ker­ala, wanted to talk to him. “The meeting barely lasted 10 minutes,” says Naraya­nan. “Modi wanted to know more about my case. He hugged me and said it was the most unfortunate thing that could happen to anyone. I am a scientist and not bothered about  politics, but I want justice and compensation for the years I have lost.”
In December 1994, Nambi Nar­ayanan, a cryogenic scientist at ISRO and a leading expert of indigenous rocket technology, was charged with selling cryog­enic technology to foreign operatives. Narayanan was thrown into prison for 50 days (and tor­tured, he alleges, by Sreekumar’s men) and his reputation des­t­r­oyed. And true to any spy thriller, an essential ingredient, women, was added to sex it up. The case spelt doom for ISRO’s cryogenic programme too. The GSLV rocket based on cryogenic technology has still not been launched.
Narayanan, who took his master’s in chemical rocket propulsion from Princeton University in 1969, and worked under Vikram Sara­bhai, Satish Dhawan and U.R. Rao at ISRO, was a broken man by the end of the ordeal. His relatives speak of his deep dejection after being falsely implicated, and how he lost all interest in the space programme that had once circumscribed his life.
After the CBI cleared his name and the Supreme Court too acquitted all the accused in the spy case, Narayanan was reinstated in ISRO. In 1999, he filed a compensation suit; the respondents included the state and Union government and IB officials, one of them being Sreekumar. In 2001, the National Human Rights Commission headed by retired SC judge J.S. Verma ordered the Kerala government to pay Rs 10 lakh as interim immediate relief. In 2012, the Kerala government dropped charges against the police officers for ‘unprofessional conduct’ in the ISRO case, something a CBI probe had recommended.
The BJP’s raking up the ISRO spy case will not return one of India’s top rocket scientists the best years of his career. What it can do is prompt the state government to overlook the bitterness of a long-settled legal tangle and settle the issue in a humane manner with him. The politics is another matter.