Home / News / Urgent Appeals / INDIA: Nine months into a case of custodial death, witness statements have still not been taken

INDIA: Nine months into a case of custodial death, witness statements have still not been taken

November 20, 2009

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-158-2009



20 November 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------
INDIA: Nine months into a case of custodial death, witness statements have still not been taken

ISSUES: Extrajudicial killing; torture; corruption; administration of justice
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information about unnecessary delays in the investigation of a man's death in custody, following his arrest for a fabricated charge. It has been reported that police officers murdered the shop owner in February last year, however the investigating agency has not even recorded the statements of witnesses yet. Though the suspect police officers were suspended from duty, they have reportedly been reassigned to active police work. At the time of his death the victim had been trying to expose corruption between the police and the forest department in the tourist town of Kalvary Mount.

CASE DETAILS:

According to information received from from Nervazhi, a human rights organisation based in Kerala, police arrested Rajappan on 20 February 2008 under the pretext of a complaint having been filed against him. He had reportedly had a scuffle with Jaymon, a security guard working for the state forest department, which Jaymon reported to the local police.

Rajappan was a volunteer in the Forest Protection Force and a member of its audit committee, and believed that he had uncovered evidence of corruption linked to Jaymon. He had filed complaints against him and his associates suggesting that they had been charging tourists exorbitant fees and keeping the profits. There are also reports locally that Jaymon had shared some of these profits with local police officers.

At the time of his arrest, the police accused Rajappan of selling illegal liquor to tourists in his shop, which is in Kalvary Mount, a popular tourist destination in the Idukki district. Rajappan denied the allegation but was punched in the face, kicked in the stomach and forced into a hired vehicle (vehicle number: KL-5-E-1717). According to witnesses, which include Maniyamma, Rajappan's wife and Mr. K. Upendranath, a local resident, the officers included Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police, Mr. M.K. Raveendran, and were accompanied by two forest department officers and a volunteer from the Forest Protection Force. Rajappan was seen being further assaulted inside the vehicle. The police then took him to Kattapana Police Station. Later that morning Rajappan's neighbour, Mr. Thomas Muthuplakkal, informed Maniyamma that her husband had been admitted to the Kattapana Mission Hospital, where she found him on an artificial respirator. At about 7pm that evening he was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Kottayam Medical College, where he died on 24 February at about 9am.

The autopsy conducted the next day revealed 17 injuries, leading the victim's family to accuse the police and forest department staff of his murder, as a response to his objection of their exploitation of tourists. The police and the forest department claimed that Rajappan jumped out of the vehicle on their way to the police station in a suicide bid.

Though the Crime Investigation Division (CID) of the state police started an investigation into the case and police officers were initially placed on suspension, within months they had been returned to active duty. None of the witnesses have yet been questioned by the CID, and Maniyamma has not been informed about the progress of the case, nor have investigators recorded her statement. More than nine months after the murder of her husband, Maniyamma still does not know the circumstances of his death, the identity of his killers, or what action the state government has taken to find them.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write to the authorities named below seeking an intervention in the case.

The AHRC is also writing to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture seeking an intervention in the case.

To support this appeal please click here:   

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear _________,

INDIA: Please ensure a credible investigation into the nine-month-old case of murder in police custody

Name of victim:
Mr. Rajappan (deceased), former resident of Kaapuchalil house, Kalvary Mount Post, Idukki, district, Kerala state.
Name of alleged perpetrators:
1. Mr. K.Raveendran, Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police; Kattappana Police Station, Idukki,
Kerala state; currently posted at Marayoor Police Station.
2. Mr. Shaji, Police Constable with Badge Number 2626, Kattappana Police Station, Idukki,
Kerala state; currently posted at Idukki Police Station.
3. Mr. Saji Thomas, Police Constable, Badge Number 2152; Kattappana Police Station, Idukki, Kerala state; currently posted at Wandenmedu Police Station.
4. Mr. Vijayankutty, Forest Officer; Ayappankovil Range, Kattappana, Idukki, Kerala state.
5. Mr. Augustine, Forest Officer; Ayappankovil Range; Kattappana, Idukki, Kerala state.

Date of incident: From 20 to 24 February 2008
Place of incident: Kalvary Mount, Idukki, Kerala state

I am writing to express my concern regarding the slow pace of investigation in the case of a suspected custodial murder. I am informed that the local police took Mr. Rajappan, the victim, into custody on 20 February 2008 and that within hours of his arrest he was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition and placed on an artificial respirator. He died whilst still in police custody in hospital, on 24 February 2008.

The officers named above are suspected of having fatally tortured Mr. Rajappan while he was in their custody, and eyewitnesses, including his wife, Ms. Maniyamma, and neighbour, Thomas, saw police officers assaulting Mr. Rajappan at the time of his arrest.

I am concerned that the unwarranted, violent manner of arrest, which in itself is illegal and a clear abuse of police authority, has not been investigated. Mr. Rajappan suffered 17 anti-mortem injuries, which have been insufficiently explained by officers as part of a suicide bid.

Although the police officers who are suspected to have murdered Mr. Rajappan were placed on suspension, within months they were reportedly recalled to active duty. Nine months into this case, witnesses including Ms. Maniyamma, have not been examined and no statements have been taken.

At the very least, Ms. Maniayamma has a right to know how her husband died and who killed him. For this, the primary requisite is that the CID investigation be completed. The witness statements must be recorded without further delay. In addition, the suspected officers named above must be placed on suspension until the investigation of the case is complete.

Yours sincerely,


----------------
PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1. Director General of Police
Government of Kerala
Police Head Quarters
Thiruvanandapuram, Kerala
INDIA
Fax: +91 471 2729434
E-mail: dgn@scrb.org

2. Mr. V. S. Achuthanandan
Chief Minister
Government of Kerala
North Block, Secretariat
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
INDIA
Fax: +91 471 2333489
E-mail: chiefminister@kerala.gov.in

3. Mr. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan
Minister of Home Affairs
Government of Kerala
Room No.216, Third Floor
North Sandwich Block, Govt. Secretariat
Thiruvananthapuram 1, Kerala
INDIA
E-mail: minister-home@kerala.gov.in

4. Mr. Oomen Chandy
Opposition Leader
Puthupally House, Jagathy,
Thiruvannathapuram, Kerala
INDIA
Fax: +91 471 2315625

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrc.asia)

Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
AHRC-UAC-158-2009
Countries :
Issues :
Document Actions
Share |
Subscribe to our Mailing List
Follow AHRC
Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.