Mokokchung, August 29 (MTNews): Regarding the alleged custodial death of Henveih Phom on August 21, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought an action taken report from the police in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar district, reported The Hindu.
Following a complaint made on August 25 by Amal Kanti Chakma, a Delhi-based member of the Indigenous Lawyers’ Association of India (ILAI), the district’s superintendent of police was given the directive.
E. Henveih Phom, 35, was detained on August 16 by the Assam police while travelling to Gelekey in the Sivasagar district. He is a native of Anaki-C village in Nagaland’s Mokokchung district.
The complainant claims that five days after being sent to judicial custody, he passed away in questionable circumstances.
The deceased’s family claimed that he was killed as a result of torture he endured while in police custody at the Gelekey police station. According to the family, he was physically sound and fit at the time of his arrest.
Protests spread throughout Nagaland after Phom’s death. S. Phangnon Konyak, the sole Rajya Sabha representative for the State, denounced the man’s death while in custody and called for punishment of the responsible parties.
Both the district police and the Assam police headquarters in Guwahati chose not to comment on the incident, it was reported.
According to Section 176(1A) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which mandates mandatory judicial inquiries in situations of death, rape, and disappearance in custody, the ILAI pleaded with the NHRC to order the Assam government to undertake a judicial inquiry into the alleged custodial death.
The ILAI also requested that the Assam government suspend all of the accused officers at the Gelekey police station, submit a detailed report that includes the post-mortem report and CCTV footage of the police station, file the appropriate legal charges against the police under applicable laws, such as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act), and pay interim compensation of Rs. 10 lakh to the deceased person’s next of kin.
The Sivasagar district police were asked by the NHRC to submit their report on the actions they had taken four weeks after August 26.