Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday expressed anger with the police after finding that injuries on suspects in a habeas corpus hearing were fresh, indicating third degree interrogation.
Doctors of Osmania General Hospital, who had been summoned to examine the injuries, certified they were fresh. As a consequence, the Cyberabad police commissioner has been told to submit a report on the sequence of events starting with the suspects’ detention, and to hand over CCTV footage from the Raidurgam police station.
Police had claimed the injuries on Syed Sohail and Syed Mohd, siblings from Shahin Nagar in Chandrayangutta, were self-inflicted, and not caused during interrogation. Police had also submitted an incomplete medical certificate from a private hospital and not a government one.
But upon learning that the injuries were fresh and caused by beating with a stick-like object, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy became enraged. They were dealing with the habeas corpus petitions filed by the suspects’ wives on September 17.
It alleged that the men were illegally detained on September 8, for a theft reported on August 16. The suspects were then produced in court on September 18.
Police claimed to have recovered seven tolas of gold and electronic items from the duo in the Tolichowki area. Government counsel claimed that the injuries were a result of the two men beating each other in a jail at Cherlapally central prison. “Are the jails providing sticks, knives and shotguns to prisoners to safeguard them from each other?” the furious judges asked. “Are jails so indisciplined? We shall summon the jail superintendent to ask if what the counsel claimed was true.”
The court directed the jail superintendent to ensure police do not meet the suspects. Next hearing is on October 14.
