annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights
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INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Bihar<br />
Supreme Court’s judgement of 15 April<br />
2002 upholding the death penalty awarded<br />
to Veer Kunwar Paswan, Krishna Mochi,<br />
Dharu Singh (alias Dharmendra Singh)<br />
and Nanhe Lal Mochi by the TADA court<br />
raised many questions. Justice M B Shah<br />
raised the following questions on the<br />
‘’quality of evidence’’ and disagreed with<br />
the death sentence. However, he was in a<br />
minority in the 2-1 verdict of April 15,<br />
2002. As Judge Shah pointed out the<br />
following questions:<br />
(1) Satyendra Sharma, the in<strong>for</strong>mant in<br />
the case, never deposed in court;<br />
(2) Confessional statement of Bihari<br />
Majhi, a Dalit labourer not even<br />
named in the FIR, was the basis of<br />
conviction. The statement, made<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e a police inspector, was<br />
denied by Majhi in court.<br />
(3) Of its 10 pages, Majhi’s signature<br />
appears only on five. In any case,<br />
only an officer of the rank of at least<br />
superintendent can record<br />
admissible statements, even under<br />
TADA provisions.<br />
(4) Of the 34 prosecution witnesses,<br />
none stated that any of the four men<br />
took part in the murder or were<br />
members of an extremist group. No<br />
arms were recovered. 53<br />
V. Prison conditions:<br />
The Jehanabad’s Hell Hole<br />
Prison conditions across Bihar remain<br />
deplorable. The Jehanabad sub-jail was<br />
declared as “unfit” by a team of PWD<br />
(Buildings) engineers in 1984. But the<br />
42<br />
same old, dilapidated jail building has<br />
been used to accommodate 648 prisoners<br />
as against the declared capacity of 140. Of<br />
the total 648 prisoners, over 300 were<br />
believed to be activists of various warring<br />
armed opposition groups like the PW,<br />
MCC, CPI-ML (Liberation) and Ranvir<br />
Sena. 54<br />
The prisoners are huddled together<br />
like goats and they hardly get any space<br />
<strong>for</strong> a nap. As per the provisions of the jail<br />
manual, prisoners are required to be<br />
provided at least 7 x 8 sq ft of space but<br />
in the Jehanabad jail, more than a dozen<br />
inmates are <strong>for</strong>ced to live together in that<br />
much space.<br />
There was neither ambulance nor any<br />
other vehicle to carry the emergency<br />
patients to hospitals. In the absence of an<br />
exclusive ward <strong>for</strong> women, women<br />
prisoners were being accommodated in a<br />
dark and dingy cell. The juvenile<br />
prisoners were <strong>for</strong>ced to undergo the<br />
trauma of living with hardened<br />
criminals. 55<br />
The Bhabhua district jail has a<br />
sanctioned capacity of 85 prisoners but the<br />
numbers of prisoners in this prison does<br />
not come down below 650. By June 2004,<br />
five prisoners including Jogari Mushahar,<br />
an undertrial, died in Bhabhua district<br />
jail. 56<br />
The abuses against the prisoners are<br />
widespread. On 9 January 2004, Chief<br />
Minister Rabri Devi <strong>report</strong>edly ordered a<br />
probe by Central Bureau of Investigation57 into the rape of Najma Khatoon, a murder<br />
convict. On 6 August 2003, 25-year-old