In middle of night, Tihar Jail officials filed a complaint against dead gangster

Gujjar was an accused in the murder of BJP leader Vijay Pandit outside his Dadri home in 2014. He was arrested in 2015.

Initial investigation revealed he was allegedly beaten to death by four persons, and jail officials are also probing the role of the deputy superintendent in connection with the murder. DG (Tihar) Sandeep Goel said he was lodged in jail number 3 and was found dead Wednesday morning.

Said a police source, “… On Thursday, a medical board of three doctors conducted a post-mortem of the victim and are learnt to have told police that they found injury marks on Gujjar’s body. They also said there is a possibility he died due to internal injuries. The report will be submitted to the judicial magistrate. Two other jail inmates were allegedly beaten up, one of them sustained fractures in his right hand; they are recuperating at DDU Hospital.”

The Additional Superinten-dent said he had filed a complaint in connection with an incident on August 3, regarding “violent behaviour” displayed by the three inmates. “It is submitted that today afternoon, a surprise search by jail staff was conducted in ward 5A and a mobile phone along with a charger was recovered from cell number 26 where three accused — Ankit, Gurjeet Singh and Gurmeet Singh — were lodged.

On orders of the superintendent, they were to be shifted to a segregation cell in ward 2 as punishment. But the warder on duty at ward 5A told deputy superintendent Narendra Meena that the inmates refused to be shifted from their ward. Thereafter, Meena, along with a sewadar and jail staff, went to ward 5A to make the accused obey the superintendent’s order,” the complaint states.

The complainant alleged that the inmates hurled abuses and attacked the deputy superintendent. “Sensing chaos, other jail staff… tried to control the situation using minimum force. In this incident, two jail officials were injured and sent to DDU hospital. Therefore, you are requested to kindly take appropriate legal action against the trio… as per law for putting hands on the uniform and attacking on duty jail staff,” he claims.

Gujjar’s father Vikram Singh had alleged that his son was killed by jail officials as he refused to give them “protection money”. Singh also shared a purported video of an inmate who was lodged in the same cell as his son, wherein he claims that Gujjar was slapped by the deputy superintendent, and he slapped him back, following which “30-35 security personnel opened lathicharge and assaulted him for around 30 minutes”.

On the video, Tihar DG Goel said, “Judicial enquiry is on and we will investigate everything.”