Nellore: Prosecution sought in custodial death

NELLORE: The Human Rights Forum (HRF) demanded that criminal prosecution proceedings be immediately initiated against police personnel, including Ulavapadu sub-inspector Y.V. Venkata Ramanayya, responsible for the custodial death of Sheik Babar Basha, 28, of Dagadarthi mandal in Nellore district on October 6. 

A two-member HRF fact-finding team visited Velupodu, Ulavapadu and Kandukur and elicited facts about the case from medical personnel, family members and local people on Friday.  

Referring to the police version that Babar Basha was being taken from Nellore to Guntur as part of an investigation regarding the recovery of a stolen car when he died of a stroke in Ulavapadu on October 6, the members alleged that it was a brazen falsehood.  

According to the members of HRF, Babar, who was a suspect in a car theft on September 4 was taken into custody by the police in Vijayawada on October 3 itself. He was brought to the Ulavapadu police station and subjected to brutal interrogation. When he was close to collapsing, the police rushed him to the nearby Community Health Centre but he died soon after at about 11.25 pm of October 6.  

The police are now trying to project death because of torture as one of ‘death due to heart attack’. HRF demanded that the policemen responsible for his death as well as those who are involved in the cover-up of this crime be prosecuted and brought to justice.

“They must be booked under relevant sections of the penal law and the investigation into the case must be handed over to an agency as independent as possible of the police.”