The Bombay high court on Wednesday expressed displeasure over non-installation of CCTVs in police stations despite a court order one-and-half years ago and asked the government to at least put up CCTVs in 25 sensitive police stations within the next six weeks. The court has also asked the government to furnish details of all custodial deaths during 2014-15 across Maharashtra on the next date of hearing.
“Submit a chart of all the persons with their names, offence (for which they were arrested), date of remand given by magistrate, date of arrest and name of police station where they have died,” said the division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice Revati Mohite-Dere.
The bench also said, “We are surprised that even after one-and-half years on no CCTVs have been installed at least in 25 sensitive police stations.”
The court also asked the “high-level committee” formed by the government on instructions of the court to submit a status report on their work. The committee has been formed to see if the CCTVs are installed in police stations and court’s guidelines are implemented to avoid custodial deaths.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Leonard Xavier Valdaris, father of Agnelo, and three other persons who were arrested along with Agnelo who allegedly died in Wadala railway police custody. Agnelo was arrested along with Sufiyan Mohammed Khan, Mohammed Irfan Hajan and Arbaz Shamim Khan on charges of committing theft. The Wadala railway police had picked up the four boys from their residence on April 15 and 16 last year. They were taken to the police station where they were allegedly beaten up and questioned about a gold chain and ring suspected to be stolen by them.
The Wadala police claimed Agnelo was killed after being run over by a train while attempting to flee from custody on April 18, 2014.
