Police lies and unidentified bodies: The story of two custodial deaths in Delhi two years apart

The custodial death of a young man at a police station in Northwest Delhi at the end of December and an attempt by the police to cover up their guilt is remarkably similar to a previous incident in the city’s southwest zone in 2014. In both cases, the policemen dumped the body of the deceased and did what they could do to make it seem like a case of an unidentified corpse. But in a city where close to 10 nameless bodies are found every day on average, such practices by the police raise serious concern and suspicion.

In the case from 2014, six policemen from the city’s Bindapur area are on trial for murder and abduction. In the latest incident at Adarsh Nagar, charges have been registered against unnamed persons of unlawful confinement, causing disappearance of evidence of offence, and culpable homicide not amounting to murder, according to a first information report on December 31.

Asked why a murder charge has not been applied in this case, Sanjay Singh, joint commissioner of police (northern range), said, “The post-mortem report of the deceased is awaited.” He added that five police officials, including the station house officer of the Adarsh Nagar Police Station, have been suspended.

Sequence of events

The incident came to light with the discovery of the body of Sompal, a fruit vendor from the Azadpur area of Northwest Delhi, at an isolated spot behind the nearby Metro station at Majlis Park on December 30. The police took him to a hospital where doctors declared him dead. There were blood stains on his face that suggested he had bled from the nose and mouth, several external injury marks, and his knees were fractured.

During the preliminary investigation, it emerged that he had been picked up by the police on December 28, following a distress call to the police control room reporting a quarrel. Taken into custody at the Adarsh Nagar police station, he had allegedly jumped off the terrace of the three-storey building and died.

The dark side of the story unfolded when the investigating officer dug deeper to find out how Sompal’s body had ended up at a different location. Further investigation called for the intervention of a senior officer. By then, the victim’s family, too, had approached the concerned assistant police commissioner, alleging that he had not jumped but had been pushed off the terrace by those who were interrogating him.

A police official, who did not want to be identified, said that in the 24 hours after the discovery of the body, all personnel at the Adarsh Nagar police station were questioned and on the basis of their statements, a sequence of events was drawn up. According to this sequence – which is subject to further investigation – the police had assaulted and threatened Sompal, suspecting him to be involved in a theft in the Azadpur area. He had tried to escape, reached the terrace and jumped off in fright.

According to the official, two constables in pursuit of the fleeing Sompal had reported his death to the station house officer. The three had then decided to put the body in a police van, drive it to an isolated spot and dump it there. After that, they had waited for the body to be discovered and for a call to be made to the police, which happened on December 30.

“The daily diary was checked and it emerged an entry was made when the youth was brought to the police station for interrogation,” the official said. “But so far, there is no FIR registered against him in connection with the theft case for which he was being interrogated.”

The National Human Rights Commission has sent a notice to the Delhi Police commissioner in this regard. And on Tuesday, the Aam Aadmi Party government ordered a judicial inquiry into the matter.

Not the first time

The circumstances surrounding Sompal’s death are similar to those in May 2014. In that case, the police picked up a resident of West Delhi’s Uttam Nagar in connection with a firing incident in Southwest Delhi’s Bindapur. The 30-year-old man lost consciousness while he was being beaten for a confession. The police then took him to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and dumped him there, claiming to have found an unidentified body.

The story did not hold for long, though. The victim’s family came to know he had been picked up by the police. Three police officers were arrested immediately and three others were charge-sheeted and arrested later. The station house officer was transferred.

A year later, another custodial death, this time in Northeast Delhi’s Nand Nagri area, sparked protests against police brutality and led to a clash between the Delhi government and the Delhi Police, who report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. In this case, the police caught the victim while he was allegedly trying to mediate in a fight between two individuals. He was beaten right there on the road, in front of his wife and child and several witnesses, and collapsed. He was taken to hospital where he was declared dead.

Investigation procedure

The Bindapur matter was handed over to the Delhi Police Crime Branch. The Nand Nagri incident, on the other hand, was shifted to the Central Bureau of Investigation, on the orders of the Delhi High Court, after a special investigation team failed to make any headway in the case. The latest incident at Adarsh Nagar is being investigated by the police in that area, with the investigating officer being a sub-inspector in the same police station.

“There is no straightjacket rule or mandatory protocol for handing over such cases to special units within the police or other agencies until there is some conflict, contradictions or controversies involved,” said retired Indian Police Service officer Prakash Singh, a former director general of the Border Security Force and chief of police in Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

“The system works on a presumption that police personnel posted in districts are capable of fair investigation; that if there is the will, the truth can be unraveled,” said Singh, who now writes on police reforms. “The problem arises when the investigators or any player in the whole chain – which includes the doctors who do the post-mortem examination and the public prosecutor – have a biased approach for some reason or the other.”

Body theory

In Delhi, the Adarsh Nagar incident raises concern because nearly 10 unidentified bodies are found in the Capital every day. Last year, 3,406 such bodies were discovered. For 2015 and 2014, the figures were 3,287 and 3,302, respectively, according to data gathered from the Zonal Integrated Police Network website.

But it has also been seen from the cases mentioned above that attempts by the police to use the excuse of unidentified bodies to conceal police brutality and custodial death don’t always work. “A case of custodial death cannot be concealed for long in the garb of an unidentified body being found,” Singh said. “For the police rules require officials to record entry in the daily diary for every investigation proceeding, which includes interrogating someone at the police station. So, the identity cannot be deceitfully covered for long.”

Singh also pointed out that the police using the excuse of an unidentified body to hide wrongdoings was “not a common excuse which is often heard of”. He said that from what he had read of the Adarsh Nagar incident so far, it appeared to be more of a case of abuse of power.