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Goa: 3 members of family found hanging after alleged police torture
The three were repeatedly called to a police station and allegedly tortured in the case of theft filed by the owner of a house where one of them worked as a help
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Three members of a family were found hanging at their home in Goa on Tuesday after they were allegedly tortured in police custody over theft charges that one of them faced.
Police said the three, including a couple aged between 35 and 28, died by suicide. The three were repeatedly called to a police station and allegedly tortured in the case of theft filed by the owner of a house where one of them worked as a help.
Their post-mortem report suggested “suicidal hanging” and prompted police superintendent (South Goa) Pankaj Kumar Singh to order an inquiry.
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The police have, however, denied that the suicides are related to any pending investigation they were conducting and pointed to a suicide note they said they recovered from the home of the victims which has revealed some names and included names of family members.
“We had recovered a note written in Kannada which we have got translated. They have named some people responsible for their suicide including some family members. Our investigation is on,” Singh said.
“The family members have now collected the body and taken it for cremation,” he added.
The family members had initially refused to receive the body after the postmortem and had demanded that a case be registered against the police officers whom they accused of torturing the family.
National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations and Council for Social Justice and Peace, an NGO, has demanded the constitution of an independent time-bound commission of inquiry to look into the matter.
In a statement, they said the in-charge of the concerned police station and other officers, who were handling the case be suspended pending the inquiry. It added Kumar’s announcement for a probe “smacks of wilful conspiracy to protect the police in uniform”.
No case has been registered against the police officers accused of torturing the three.
