After a fact-finding team published a report alleging that a 30-year-old from Nuh’s Meo community died in an extra-judicial killing, Haryana Police has now filed an FIR against the accused police personnel. A four-member Special Inevestigation Team (SIT) has also been constituted to probe the killing.
According to the first FIR filed in the case, based on a complaint by Inspector Mastana, Munfaid, the victim, was found dead in a white pickup truck with a bullet injury in his neck on September 16. This FIR was filed against unknown accused.
However, the father of the deceased, Ismail Hussain alleged that his son was killed in an encounter by members of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) of Haryana Police, a special branch of the state’s police. Mastana is also a member of the CIA.
According to the fact-finding report of an activist group ‘Citizens Against Hate’, Hussain told the activists that four CIA staff members – Vikrant, Shakti Singh, Satish, and Siddharth – had called his son to Rewari on September 15. The officers had promised to close an allegedly false rape case against Munfaid if he “does some work for them”, the report says. On September 16, police told Hussain that he had been found dead. The nature of the work that the police asked Munfaid to do is not clear.
Residents of Rojkameo village, where Munfaid’s in-laws reside, told the activists that Munfaid was accompanied by friends when he met the police officers. His friends reportedly witnessed the shooting. They informed the residents of the village that the police officers came in a green Bolero car which stopped right in front of their vehicle. Munfaid, who was sitting in a car with his friends, was shot at by the officers. His friends fled the spot and fearing dire consequences and have been reluctant to give a statement, the report added.
While Hussain earlier alleged that the police was not filing an FIR based on his complaint, the names of the CIA officers have now been included in an FIR, police told YKA. Yadram, DSP Firojpur Jhirka, who is heading the SIT, however, added that they will be able tell “the truth after the SIT submits its reports”.
Yadram also refuted allegations of tampering during the post-mortem made by Hussain. He told YKA that the post-morten was videographed and tampering was not probable. Residents of Rojkameo had told the fact-finding team that the police had taken the dead body to two different hospitals and each refused to conduct the post mortem on an unidentified body, which, according to norms, can only be done if the body is not identified for three days. They further added that the police finally called a doctor from Palwal to conduct the post mortem.
The fact-finding report by Citizen Against Hate also states that there has been a surge in cases of extra-judicial killings of Muslim youth by police in Nuh and Faridabad Districts of Haryana. ‘Lynching Without End’, another report by the group, lists 11 police encounter cases between 2010 and 2017 in Nuh district alone.