Taking a serious view of an incident last year in which three inmates at a district jail in Bhadoi, Uttar Pradesh, were hung by the legs and beaten up severely, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the State government to provide relief of Rs.25,000 to each of Suresh alias Suraj, Rajkumar alias Chhotu and Raj Bahadur Yadav and the commission asked the State Chief Secretary to send the proof of payment within four weeks.
Earlier, responding to the NHRC’s notice, Additional IG (Administration) of Prisons, who had with him a report from DIG (Prisons), Allahabad Range, said the then in-charge of the jail, a Deputy Jailor, and two warders were found responsible for the incident and an FIR was registered against them. A request was also made to the medical department for initiating action against jail medical officer. The commission was convinced that some erring officials were already punished departmentally and a magisterial inquiry had indicted several jail officials, and hence the grant of interim relief to each victim was justified.
It turned down the government’s plea to suspend the payment of relief till the departmental inquiry on the staff was completed.