The Hindu : New Delhi News : NGO claims prisoners still tortured in Tihar Jail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

NGO claims prisoners still tortured in Tihar Jail

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 14. At a time when a film on prison reforms introduced in Tihar Central Jail here by noted police officer and Magsaysay Award winner Kiran Bedi is seeking Oscar nomination, the Society for the Protection of Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights has alleged that prisoners there are still "regularly beaten and subjected to all kinds of torture and various forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment''.

More so, the president of the Society, Gursharan Singh, on Monday charged that the jail visitors, officials and non-government officials were not being able to reach the high-risk cells and as such the voices of several prisoners never reach the outside world. Stating that most of those in these high-risk cells are "victims of the so-called war against terrorism and Islamophobia'', he said it is important that public attention be focused on the conditions of inmates in the jails and also on the issue of political prisoners.

A well-known theatre activist, Mr Singh said he personally knew of about a dozen Sikh detenues who have been languishing in jails without trial for the past two decades. The Society has been formed with the aim of generating awareness of the rights of the detainees and prisoners and to work for humane conditions inside jails, lock-ups and other detention centres. It would also seek to work towards implementation of various convention and rules governing conduct of prisons.

The vice-president of the Society, S.A.R. Geelani, prime accused in the Parliament attack case -- who was convicted by a POTA court and subsequently acquitted by Delhi High Court -- said the Tihar Jail has secret "high-risk'' cells in all its jails in which three or four prisoners are kept. While during the day these prisoners get to move within the cell, at night they are confined to their individual "cage'', which has iron bars on all sides.

Noting that during his stay in prison, he was usually in illegal "solitary confinement'' and did not get to see the sun for several months, Mr. Geelani said the worst treated are Kashmiris who are beaten by convicts the moment they enter the prison. "When even the former Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman, Yasin Malik, was assaulted in Tihar Jail, one can well imagine the plight of others.''

Mr. Geelani alleged that prisoners -- especially Muslims and Kashmiris -- were being treated worse than slaves and so he had decided to work for their cause upon his release. "Of the about 100 Kashmiri inmates, 10 have been languishing in the jail for the last eight years. In their cases there are about 150 witnesses each whereas in all these less than a tenth have been examined. At this rate the cases would drag on for decades.''

In view of the manner of handling of their cases, he said, the Society has also written to the National Human Rights Commission seeking its intervention in the matter.

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