The J&K and Ladakh High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Basohli, Suresh Kumar, and 10 other police personnel after two labourers from Punjab filed a petition alleging they were “tortured” in custody and detained in violation of guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court. The petition was filed by Pathankot residents Sukar Deen and Farid Mohammad, who alleged that the police personnel illegally detained them at Atal Setu in Basohli on the afternoon of June 30 and “brutally tortured” them in custody. Their counsel, Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed, drew the court’s attention to the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar V/s State of Bihar that no person shall be detained/arrested in cases wherein the imprisonment is up to seven years. He submitted that these police personnel, in order to justify their “illegal act”, registered a false and frivolous FIR against the two men. He also produced photographs of injuries sustained by the petitioners allegedly during “police torture”. He also referred to the order of the Munsiff (Judicial Magistrate Ist Class), Baohli, Bhanu Bhasin, when the petitioners were produced before the court by police on June 30, seeking their police remand for five days. The Munsiff had observed that the accused persons were found by the doctor to be not medically fit as per their medical examination report annexed with the remand application and that the doctor mentioned injuries on both the accused persons, the petitioners’ lawyer pointed out. Looking into the deteriorating health condition of the two accused, the judge had remanded them to Judicial Custody for a period of five days instead of police custody, Ahmed said.
