GHAZIABAD: An additional sessions court has sentenced four caretakers to life imprisonment for murdering an inmate at a drug de-addiction centre in Ghaziabad’s Niwari in April 2014.
A Muradnagar resident, Pramod Kumar, then 50, was admitted to the de-addiction centre by his family only a month before the incident.
A complaint filed by his son, Deepanshu, stated on April 10, 2014, he received a call from the rehabilitation centre around 11.30 pm asking him to come to the centre as Kumar was unwell.
On reaching the centre, Deepanshu found several injury marks on Kumar’s head and body.
“My father told me that he was beaten up by four caretakers—Devendra Pratap, Sanju, Shiv Kumar, and Manoj Kumar. We took him to a private hospital where he was declared dead,” the complainant said.
Ghaziabad police registered a case and arrested four men two days later on April 12.
During the trial, eyewitnesses told the court that he was thrashed by the four men on the night of April 10, 2014, for demanding drugs, additional district government counsel Naresh Chaudhury told TOI.
Virendra Kumar, one of the witnesses, told the court he was admitted to the Niwari de-addiction centre during the corresponding period. “Caretakers at the centre would thrash inmates if they demanded drugs. That night (April 10, 2014), the four caretakers thrashed Kumar. He fainted and died,” he said.
He claimed that another inmate, Sushil Lamba, was also beaten to death a few days prior to the April incident but the victim’s family could not file a police complaint.
Dr RP Singh, who conducted the post-mortem, informed the court that Kumar had multiple antemortem injuries on his face, eyes and body and had succumbed to them.
The four men, however, had pleaded not guilty. Devendra’s lawyer MP Verma said his client was wrongly framed in this case.
On Monday, additional sessions court judge Shiv Kumar Tiwari relied on the medical evidence and testimonies of the witnesses and convicted the four caregivers. “Devendra Pratap Singh, Shiv Kumar, Sanju and Manoj Kumar are sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs 10,000 each under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and Section 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC,” the court said.
The verdict comes barely four months after a Paschim Vihar resident, admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre run by Avishka Foundation in Ram Park Extension area of Ghaziabad’s Khanpur Mod, was allegedly beaten to death by the operator and his four accomplices.
On June 23, an inmate was found hanging in the bathroom of a de-addiction centre in the Loni Border area. The victim, Dharmendra Kumar, allegedly hanged himself from the window grille in Jeevan Dan Welfare Society.
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