Cuttack: Police in Odisha’s Cuttack district have arrested two retired police personnel and four home guards, nearly a decade after an alleged custodial death of 44-year-old resident of Malisahi village under Narasinghpur police limits.
Those arrested have been identified as retired assistant sub-inspector Bhagan Sahoo, retired havildar Pramod Kumar Patra, and home guards Joginath Nayak, Bhikari Nayak and Maheswar Debata, and Dharmaraj Rana. Debata and Rana are still in service. They were produced before a court and sent to judicial custody on Tuesday, after their bail pleas were denied.
The case dates back to December 9, 2016, when Saroj Senapati aka Akula was detained at Narasinghpur Police Station following a complaint filed by a woman, who accused him of assault during a dispute over cattle grazing. He was allegedly subjected to
severe torture, including brutal beatings, during the interrogation. He was initially admitted to a local community health centre and later shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
A case was registered under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 448 (house-trespass), 342 (wrongful confinement), 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation), 302 (murder), and 34 (common intention). Investigations revealed evidence of wrongful confinement, assault, intimidation, and murder linked to the personnel on duty.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognisance of the matter and launched its own probe, while the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) also sought reports from the Cuttack Superintendent of Police regarding the custodial death.
Police had earlier denied the allegations of custodial torture, claiming that Senapati had violently attacked the officers who had come to escort him to the station and he sustained injuries during a scuffle en route.
The arrests came a day after nine policemen of Madurai in Tamil Nadu were sentenced to death for the custodial killings of a father-son duo in 2020.