25 August 2024, Delhi: PUDR strongly condemns the recent custodial death in Assam which occurred when an accused, a suspect in the gang-rape of a minor girl, drowned in a pond in Nagaon district, Assam on August 24, 2024. The deceased, 24-year-old Tafazul Islam, an unemployed youth, was arrested the day before from his home in Borbeti village in Nagaon district. The circumstances of Islam’s arrest, as of now, remain unknown. However, soon after his arrest, he was booked under sections of the BNS and POCSO. According to news reports, around 3.30 am, of August 24, Tafazul was taken to the incident site in handcuffs tied to a rope, in a bid to re-create the scene of crime. Apparently, he escaped police custody by jumping into a pond. His body was recovered two hours later. A constable is said to be injured while preventing Islam’s escape.
The gang-rape was heinous, especially since the survivor’s attackers callously left her in an unconscious state on the roadside, in the evening of August 23 when she was returning home from taking tuition. There is no gainsaying that strict action needs to be taken against perpetrators, but the Chief Minister’s deliberate drawing attention to the fears of the “indigenous people” of Lower Assam, Central Assam and Barak valley has communalized the incident. Not to be left behind, a Cabinet Minister who visited the area after the incident reiterated the CM’s views about the incident being an attack on the ‘indigenous’, and assured the irate public that the “investigation is moving in the correct direction.”
Assam has an alarming record of custodial deaths. According to the NHRC, 11 cases were recorded in 2022-2023 and 9 in 2021-2022. In the five-year period, 2018-2023, the NHRC recorded 28 such incidents. As per the MHA, Assam has the highest custodial deaths and encounter deaths in all of North-east. A total of 41 custodial deaths were recorded by the MHA in the two-year period, April 2020-March 2022.
Besides custodial deaths, Assam has an infamous history of encounter deaths. Reminiscent of the ‘secret-killings’ of the 1990s, the spate of ‘encounters’ increased in recent times, especially since the time when Mr Hemanta Sarma assumed the post of Chief Minister. In September 2022, the state government filed an affidavit in the High Court in which it stated that 171 police encounters had happened between May 2021 and September 2022, in which 56 suspects were killed and 145 were injured. Most victims are from ethnic or from religious minorities.
Given the understandable public outrage over the gangrape, the mounting impunity of men in uniform and the communalising of the incident, the possibility of an encounter happening (without mentioning Islam’s name) had been flagged by local journalists over social media soon after the police arrested Islam on August 23, 2024. Tafazul Islam’s tragic death seems to be a case of a ‘death foretold’. But questions remain. Since Islam was lawfully arrested, the police was responsible for his welfare in custody. So, how did Islam fall into the pond? The SP Nagaon said, “The accused was taken to the crime scene when he pulled away from an officer and fell into a pond”. Was Islam pushed into the pond? Or did he jump out of desperation? And why was Islam taken at nighttime when there were no witnesses around?
Over six decades ago, in 1963, while disposing of a criminal appeal, Justice A.N. Mulla of the Allahabad High Court had remarked, “there is not, a single lawless group in the whole country whose record of crime comes anywhere near the record of the organized unit which is known as the Indian Police Force”. Not only does this continue to remain true, but it has also become a recurring habit of the police to brazenly kill, or allow a suspect to deliberately die, with impunity. What is also clear is the immunity that the men in uniform gain from the deliberate political and communal muscling of the police force by politicians in Assam. If the police is allowed to go scot-free after killing a suspect or causing a suspect’s death, then the crime is not solved and justice for the rape survivor will remain unavailable.
PUDR believes that vigilant public opinion needs to be built around police lawlessness as accountability needs to be demanded from those in uniform.
PUDR demands:
● An FIR should be registered into the custodial death of Tafazul Islam on August 24, 2024, against errant policemen.
● Arrest and prosecution be taken against guilty policemen for causing the custodial death of Tafazul Islam.
● Magisterial inquiry should be instituted into the incident of custody death, as per law.
Paramjeet Singh
Joseph Mathai
Secretaries, PUDR
