A 36-year-old man in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district died in police custody after he was detained at a checkpoint on Monday, June 3.
The victim, Imtiaz Ahmad Pala, worked as an electrician and was taken into custody in a drug-related case, a local daily reported. He was the only breadwinner for his family and is survived by two children, his wife, an ailing father, and an unmarried sister.
Meanwhile, the family of the deceased alleged that the torture Imtiaz was subjected to by the police caused him to die, The Wire reported.
However, the authorities refuted the allegations and claimed that the deceased was being interrogated during which his condition worsened and he passed away.
The Wire, citing Imtiaz’s father-in-law, Ghulam Hassan, said that on Sunday night, June 2, the security personnel were looking for an electrician to fix a defective generator and they picked him up from his residence while there was a live search operation taking place in the neighboring village.
When Imtiaz did not return, it concerned the family and they went to the village where the locals told them that he was interrogated and beaten up.
Hassan said that he was denied permission to meet Imtiaz multiple times. He said that on June 4 a senior police officer asked him to follow them to Srinagar police Control Room where the family was kept waiting for the whole day.
Speaking to The Wire, Hassan said, “The cops gave me two options. Either he was going to be framed in a militancy case in which case they (police) said that his body would be buried far away and our home would get demolished too. The other option they gave me was to sign a document. They said they would frame him in a drug-related matter and I would get to take his body home.”
He lamented that he was innocent and that he did not even smoke, and yet he was taken into custody in a drug-related matter.
Reports suggest that Pala was arrested in alleged connections with a case filed under sections 8 (cultivation or transport of banned drugs) and 22(punishment for contravention in relation to psychotropic substances) of the NDPS Act, 1985.
Meanwhile, a magisterial probe has also been ordered into the victim’s death.
