Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has directed the Hyderabad Police Commissioner to examine CCTV footage from the Malakpet police station after a goldsmith accused officers of illegally detaining and torturing him over a gold recovery case.
Justice Madhavi Devi passed the order on a writ petition filed by P Srikanth, 37, who alleged he was picked up by Malakpet police from his workplace around 7 pm on July 17 without any information on the reason for his arrest. His counsel, K Ajith Reddy, told the court that Srikanth was subjected to custodial violence and pressured both to confess to a crime and to withdraw his pending writ petition.
The petition further claimed that Srikanth was formally remanded only on July 18, which was well beyond the mandatory 24-hour limit for producing a detained person before a magistrate.
The court noted that a representation detailing the alleged mistreatment had already been sent by registered post to the Director General of Police (DGP) and forwarded to the City Police Commissioner.
Taking this into account, Justice Madhavi Devi directed Commissioner of Police VC Sajjanar to review CCTV footage from the Malakpet station between 6:30 pm on July 17 and 6:30 pm on July 18, and to weigh the medical reports and photographs of injuries that Srikanth had submitted along with his petition, before deciding on the representation.
The case has added to the recent string of custodial death and torture allegations that have put Telangana’s police and prison system under scrutiny, with courts being forced to repeatedly step in to order CCTV preservation and independent probes rather than relying solely on departmental inquiries. The Telangana High Court has, in the past, gone as far as recommending CBI probes into custodial deaths where it found internal investigations inadequate.
