Date:25/01/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/01/25/stories/2007012514140400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Police claim of arresting `poacher' Kencha refuted

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) has refuted the police statement that they had arrested the alleged poacher Kencha at his house in Bidarahalli in M.M. Hills on Sunday.

Executive director of SICHREM Mathews Phillip said in a press statement here on Wednesday that his organisation had made Kencha surrender before the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police K.R. Srinivasan at his office here on Friday.

Mr. Phillip claimed that after taking Kencha and two others into custody on January 10, the Forest Department officials had illegally detained and tortured them. Unable to bear the torture, Kencha had escaped from custody with the help of a forest guard Santosh. The guard was later suspended, he said.

Kencha contacted the district Humans Rights Centre of SICHREM at Chamarajanagar through a source. Mani, a human rights activist with Peoples Watch, brought Kencha to SICHREM office in Bangalore on January 19. On realising that there were criminal cases against Kencha, SICHREM made him surrender before the DGP, Mr. Phillip said.