NHRC notice to UP authorities over prisoner's assault

National Human Rights Commission today issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh Prisons Department and police authorities of Mahoba district in connection with a case in which an undertrial prisoner was allegedly severely beaten up by the Mahoba Jailor for failing to pay him bribe.
According to an official statement released today, notices have been issued to the Director General of Prisons, Uttar Pradesh and Superintendent of Police, Mahoba calling for reports in the matter within two weeks.
The notices were issued after the Commission took suo motu cognisance of a media report that a Jailor in Mahoba stamped an undertrial prisoner, released by the court on bail, with a hot iron rod and brutally beat him up with a whip before throwing him out of the jail in a semi-conscious state.

According to the media report, carried on September 22, the reason behind the Jailor's ire was that the undertrial prisoner, instead of paying a bribe of Rs 5,000 to him on the occasion of his release on bail, asked him to deduct the amount from his earnings of Rs 10,000 in the jail by labour.
The Commission has observed that the contents of the press report, if true, raise a serious issue of violation of human rights of the undertrial.
Reportedly, the court had ordered release of the victim Halke, son of Bharati Lal Busore, a Dalit and an accused in a murder case, on bail on September 20.

Severely injured Halke was admitted in the district hospital by some other released prisoners. Reportedly, the Jailor has been accused of other such incidents in the past, the statement said.