OHRC to probe custodial death

BHUBANESWAR: Family members of Satyabrata Naik, a 25-year-old tribal prisoner died in Champua jail in Keonjhar districts last week, demanded a judicial inquiry into the case. The Orissa Human Rights Commission, however, have also taken suo motto cognizance of the case.
Naik, an under trial prisoner in Champua jail, was reportedly fallen ill at about midnight of June 30 and died in Champua hospital on July 1.However, the family members of Naik alleged that the jail staff informed them that Naik is not well and admitted in hospital but when they reached there he was no more. They also raised questions in their petition to the OHRC that when Naik was fit and fine on June 29, on what circumstances he suddenly fell ill. How so many injury marks were there on his body? And finally, why the jail officials did not disclose about his death to the family and why they took his father's signature on a plain paper?
"They being gullible poor people the jail staff are trying to suppress the facts. It is very clear from injury marks on his body that he was tortured in the jail. How can a person died of diabetes within six hours while he was not a diabetic at all?" asked Keonjhar district BJP president, Murli Manohar Sharma.