NHRC notice to Guj DGP over alleged torture of minor in police custody in Rajkot

New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) The NHRC on Wednesday said it has issued a notice to the Gujarat police chief over reports alleging that a 17-year-old youth was tortured in police custody in Rajkot district last

month.

The alleged incident reportedly came to light on October 6 after a “video of the torture surfaced on social media”, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said.

The NHRC, in a statement, said it has “taken suo motu cognisance of a media report that a 17-year-old boy was tortured in police custody at the Gandhigram Police Station in Rajkot district of Gujarat on September 1”.

The rights panel has observed that the content of the media report, if true, raise a serious issue of human rights violation of the victim.

Therefore, it has issued a notice to the Director General of Police of Gujarat, seeking a detailed report in two weeks.

According to the media report, carried on October 7, in the video of the incident, an officer could be seen “pulling hair from the scalp of the boy while other police officials were laughing”, it said.

Reportedly, on the night of September 1, the youth was taken into custody in connection with a “stabbing incident a day before”. The minor and his associates were detained and later presented before a juvenile court, which remanded him to a juvenile detention centre. He was released on bail approximately two weeks later, the statement said. PTI KND RT