Police say internal inquiry confirms Jharkhand man was lynched, but activists say it is a cover-up of a custodial death.
Screengrab from the video that showed the victim Sanjay Tudu being beaten up by a mob.
The mystery surrounding the death of a man from Jharkhand, who was apparently lynched by a mob in Bengaluru on 23 September, is deepening by the day.
According to the police, the man, identified only a week later as 33-year-old Sanjay Tudu, who worked as a mason, was apparently attacked by a mob in Vijinapura near Ramamurthy Nagar on suspicion of being a child lifter.
The police said he later died of the injuries he sustained in the mob attack.
A rights activist in the city, however, rubbish this claim, alleging that he died in custody. He has written to the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court as well as the chief minister seeking a probe into the incident.
Pointing to inconsistencies in the police version of the incident, he is even planning to file a public interest litigation (PIL) in the high court next week.
The police, on its part, have already conducted an internal inquiry and concluded that the force was not at fault in any way.
That Sanjay Tudu was attacked by a mob is not in doubt. There is video footage of the incident, which shows a man being thrashed by a crowd.
This resulted, among other injuries, in a deep cut on the man’s head and profuse bleeding, which is evident in the video.
The video also records the arrival of a police patrol vehicle (Hoysala), which we now know was attached to Ramamurthy Nagar police station, which took the man away.
The next day, 24 September, a body was found near the ITI bus stop, which falls under the jurisdiction of the neighbouring KR Puram police station.
As body could not be immediately identified, the KR Puram police filed the matter as an unnatural death report (UDR) and sent the body for post-mortem as a matter of routine.
The post-mortem report, when it came in, suggested the man had been brutally attacked, leading to his death.
“The post-mortem report indicated that the man had been assaulted and had many internal and external injuries,” a police officer told South First.
“After the post-mortem report came out, the KR Puram police changed the case from UDR to a case of murder (IPC 302). Our investigation revealed that he had been lynched by the public,” Whitefield Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) S Girish told South First.
On the basis of the investigation, during which the man was identified as Sanjay Tudu, six people have been arrested. And the police, on 3 October, handed over Tudu’s body to his family.
The question that rights activists are asking is: How did Tudu, who was picked up by personnel of Ramamurthy Nagar police station, end up dead near the ITI bus stop under the KR Puram police station?
The police explanation is straightforward.
The police patrol vehicle attached to the Ramamurthy Nagar police station, hearing of the incident, reached the spot and took custody of Tudu from the locals and took him to the station.
According to the police, Tudu, who was “drunk but alert”, refused to be taken to a hospital. He also declined to file a complaint against those who had beaten him up, and said he just wanted to return home.
Such being the case, the police said, they had little option than to let him go.
More importantly, the police said there was CCTV footage of Tudu at the police station and also shows him leaving the station on his own.
According to DCP, East Division, of Bengaluru Police, Bheemashankar S Guled, Tudu “was there in the station for only four minutes, and every second of that has been recorded in the CCTV camera at the station”.
He said there was no assault on him at the station. “He was fully conscious, and refused to file a complaint against those who assaulted him. So he left the police station,” Guled told South First.
The city-based rights activist has, however, alleged that the police patrol brought Tudu to the Ramamurthy Nagar Police Station, where he was further assaulted, leading to his death.
“This is internal info received from one of the cops. When he was taken by the police patrol, how was his body found in KR Puram limits? What investigation did the police conduct?” activist Paramesh V told South First.
While doubting the police version of events, including the name “Sanjay Tudu”, he had several more questions relating to inconsistencies in the police version.
“There were cuts and wounds on his body, so it was the responsibility of the police to take Tudu to a hospital and register an MLC (medico-legal case), after which the doctor should have sent a report the police station. Why was this not done?” asked Paramesh.
On the police claim that there was CCTV footage of Tudu leaving the police station, he asked: “Have they produced this CCTV footage before the local magistrate?”
More importantly, he asked: “How did police let him go without an investigation? What if he was really a child lifter? And what do they mean by ‘drunk but alert’?”
“How did his family, which was missing for almost two weeks, suddenly come into the picture? Where is the letter the police sent to them? Did they send it through post, and was any entry made in their register?” he asked, demanding answers from the police.
Describing it as a “big cover-up story” between two police stations (Ramamurthy Nagar and KR Puram), he alleged that a day after the lynching, the police called the residents and made them delete videos of the incident.
The rights activist said he was in the process of writing a letter to the Jharkhand Governor and DGP, asking them if Bengaluru City Police had contacted them.
However, DCP, East Division, Guled, who inquired into whether there was any lapse on the part of the police, told South First that he had not found any.
DCP Guled said that the “murder investigation will continue, but our probe regarding any lacunae (gaps) is over”.
“When there is no mistake made by the police, what action can be taken?” he said on being asked if any action would be taken against the police officers involved in the incident.
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