Date:04/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/04/stories/2009070457890400.htm

New Delhi

Gujarat police asked to pay three lakh to boy’s family

Staff Reporter

For wrongful confinement and mentally torturing him

Police alleged he was an illegal Bangladeshi resident of Gujarat
Mother filed petition in Delhi High Court countering police allegations

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Gujarat police to pay Rs.2.95 lakh to the family of a teenaged boy from the Capital for keeping him in wrongful confinement and mentally torturing him for a week.

The police will pay Rs.2.70 lakh to the victim’s family to compensate him for the mental torture and Rs.25,000 as costs for keeping him in illegal confinement.

The police had picked up the boy from Seelampur in North-East Delhi in May last year alleging that he was an illegal Bangladeshi resident of Gujarat and, therefore, needed to be deported to his native country.

However, his mother in a habeas corpus petition filed in the High Court countered the police allegations submitting that she and her son were bona fide citizens of this country.

Submitting documents in support of her claim, she urged the Court to issue a direction to the Delhi police to produce her son.

The Delhi police traced and produced him before the Court. After verifying the documents submitted to it, the Court handed over the boy to his mother in June last year. However, the Court kept the matter pending to decide on the compensation to the victim’s mother for the mental torture and illegal confinement.

The Court ordered the compensation and imposed costs on the Gujarat police after recording the statement of the victim who said he was kept in a lock-up and mentally tortured for a week by the State police personnel.