The National Commission for Minorities has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP), and Chief Secretary, asking for a detailed report into the death of 22-year-old Altaf in police custody in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh.
The panel on Friday sought a report within 15 days from two top offices in the BJP governing state.
“Once we get the report, we will visit the place and see that no injustice is done to anyone on the basis of his caste and religion,” ANI news agency quotes National Commission for Minorities Chairman Sardar Iqbal Singh Lalpura as saying.
The alleged custodial killing of the young Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh has triggered outrage among opposition politicians in the poll-bound state.
Altaf’s family has alleged that he was murdered in custody while the police claim that he hanged himself to a tap using the drawstring of his jacket hood.
The Muslim youth in Ahroli village in Kasganj, was taken into police custody on Tuesday morning in a case related to the alleged kidnapping of a Hindu girl.
Police claim he asked to go to the washroom during the interrogation, where he hanged himself using his jacket’s string which he tied to a water tap.
But the local reporters report that Altaf was about 5ft 6 inches tall and the water pipe was less than three feet from the ground.
“It is not suicide, it is a police killing. They killed my son,” Altaf’s father Chand Miyan said to Maktoob over the phone.
“My son was innocent, he had no criminal past,” Miyan said.
The family of the deceased has demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into his death.
As of now, 5 police officials are suspended for negligence of duty after Altaf’s death. While the police say the injuries revealed around the neck in the post mortem of Altaf are consistent with their suicide theory, there is an absence of any other evidence.
The state’s main opposition parties, the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party attacked the Yogi Adityanath government over yet another “misdeed” by the state’s “trigger-happy police.”
Senior Congress leader and former union minister Salman Khurshid along with other Congress leaders visited Altaf’s family on Thursday night while Hyderabad MP and AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi launched a fresh attack against Yogi Adityanath government through his party’s public gatherings.
India’s key Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted “Is there anything called human rights left in Uttar Pradesh?”
