N.D. Sharma

Bhopal, May 14

C.K. Mod, jailer, Rajgarh district jail, was booked yesterday for torturing to death a Schecdled Caste undertrial and sent to judicial custody on the directive of the District and Sessions Judge. A case under Sections 302 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3(2) and 5 of the Prevention of Atrocities on SCs and STs Act has been registered against him. Mod is being kept at the Narsinghgarh sub-jail of Rajgarh district.

Jaisingh and Maqsood Khan, two other employees of the jail, have been named co-accused in the case. They have been absconding.

Sunderlal was remanded in police custody on May 4. The following day Mod, with the help of Jaisingh and Maqsood Khan, was said to have tied Sunderlal to a window of the barrack and beat him up mercilessly. The jailer also poured boiling water on the undertrial. Sunderlal was later admitted to the district hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Dr Gauri Shankar Shejwar, who had led a three-member BJP delegation to find the circumstances of Sunderlal’s death, said his torture by Mod, Jaisingh and Maqsood had been confirmed by other inmates of the district jail. Shejwar, however, could not say why Sunderlal was picked up by the jailer for this inhuman treatment.

The Chief Minister, Mr Digvijay Singh, has directed the police officers to be sensitive towards the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes who constitute 19 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively of the state’s population.