NHRC notice to Karnataka on alleged torture of 32 convicts

The National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to two top Karnataka prison officials taking cognizance of a complaint about alleged torture and transfer of 32 convicts serving terms in the Central Prison here.
An NHRC release here said that the complaint alleged the prisoners were beaten black and blue and shifted overnight (on July 16) in injured condition to various other prisons at Mysore, Ballari, Belagavi and Davanagere.
According to the complaint, lodged yesterday by BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje, the family members of these prisoners are not able to meet them, it said.
The complaint was filed a day after the prisoners, in a sudden move, were shifted around 1 am to prisons in Ballari and Belagavi for allegedly trying to air their grievances.

The commission observed that the allegations regarding physical torture of the prisoners and their overnight transfer to other jails, in an injured condition, if true, raise serious issue of violation of their right to life and dignity.
It issued notices to Karnataka DGP and IG Prisons asking them to file within four weeks a detailed report on the allegations along with the present location and state of health of the "injured and shifted" prisoners.

"It need not be restated that a prisoner is not a slave of the State and is not denude of all his fundamental rights, while in judicial custody," the release said.

Allegedly, the prisoners were given this inhuman treatment due to their initiative to stage a protest dharna inside the jail premises as they were not allowed to speak to (then) DIG (Prisons) D Roopa, who had visited the jail, it mentioned.
Roppa has recently brought out certain 'grave irregularities', going on inside the Central Jail including, providing special and sophisticated kitchen to one of the prisoners, (AIADMK AMMA chief) Sasikala and VIP treatment to another prisoner, Abdul Karim Lala Telgi, the release said.
The issue of alleged preferential treatment to Sasikala, serving a four-year term in a disproportionate assets case, came to fore after Roopa submitted a report to her superior DGP (Prisons) H N Sathyanarayana Rao.

Both Roopa and Rao were transferred after they sparred over the report on the allegations in public.
The government has also ordered a probe by a retired official into the allegations.
The release said as per the complaint the 32 prisoners were allegedly shifted in a hasty manner in order to avoid any disclosure to the enquiry officer.