Following directions by chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, inspector general of police (prisons) Jagjit Singh along with superintendent of police (jails) Paramjit Singh Sandhu on Tuesday met the family of the 17-year-old Muslim boy, whose body was found under mysterious circumstances in the Kapurthala Modern Jail on May 27.
The police officials recorded the statements of the victim’s family members.
Nurjahan, the deceased boy’s mother, said the IG has asked her to provide him all information from his arrest by the police to his death at jail.
“I need justice for my son, who died due to the negligence of the police,” she said.
Jagjit Singh said he recorded the statements of the family as part of the departmental inquiry and they are investigating the case.
"The reports will be submitted to the department concerned and action will be taken against the guilty,” he said.
The juvenile Muslim boy was thrown in with hardened criminals at the age of 16, even as it is illegal to keep a minor in the prison. Under the Juvenile Justice Act, minors in custody can be kept only at observation homes and not in a jail that meant for adults.
HT has a copy of the boy’s Aaadhaar card, which shows that the victim was born in 1998. He was 16 when the Kapurthala sadar police arrested him first on May 28, 2014. In the FIR (first information report), the police claimed to have arrested him near a canal at Buddho Pinder village on the Jalandhar border for having in his possession 30-gram drug powder. Then, he was moved to the Kapurthala jail instead of the juvenile home and was released on bail after three months.
{{/usCountry}}HT has a copy of the boy’s Aaadhaar card, which shows that the victim was born in 1998. He was 16 when the Kapurthala sadar police arrested him first on May 28, 2014. In the FIR (first information report), the police claimed to have arrested him near a canal at Buddho Pinder village on the Jalandhar border for having in his possession 30-gram drug powder. Then, he was moved to the Kapurthala jail instead of the juvenile home and was released on bail after three months.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, IG prisons on June 2 had also sought statements of the jail superintendent and other staff members on the custodial death.