Pragya Thakur’s allegations of police torture couldn’t be substantiated



custody

Anti-Terrorism Squad

Pragya Singh Thakur’s allegations of extreme torture while in theof the Hemant Karkare-led state(ATS) couldn’t be proved anywhere, be it the Supreme Court, the Bombay High Court, or the National Human Rights Commission.Pragya, one of the prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, was in jail for nine years, from October 2008 to April 2017, when she secured bail.In August 2014, the rights commission had ordered the state director general of police to probe Pragya’s allegations of torture by forming a committee under the supervision of a senior police officer.Subsequently, the probe panel was formed under the guidance of RS Khaire, the then deputy inspector general (administration), CID-Pune and comprising of KH Kurlekar, the then deputy superintendent of the Yerwada Central Prison, JM Kurkarni, then an inspector posted in CID Pune, Rashmi Joshi, member of Dakshata Sameeti, Pune, and the NGO Greenlife Foundation.Regarding Pragya’s allegations, the rights commission noted while closing the case in 2015 that the charges were “not substantiated by facts or evidence collected by the inquiry commission from the prison, courts, and the hospital where Pragya was admitted”. “No further intervention of the commission is required, and the case is closed,” the rights commission said.Four years before this clean chit to Karkare and his team by the Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court had made a brief remark on Pragya’s allegations in 2011. The apex court’s division bench of Justices JM Panchal and HL Gokhale, while acknowledging that the rights commission was also looking into these allegations, said that Pragya was examined by doctors at two hospitals, and they didn’t find any injury marks on her.Pragya had claimed in November 2008 that the ATS had forced her aide, Bhim Pasricha, to thrash her while in custody. The Supreme Court noted that she was produced before the Nashik chief judicial magistrate on two occasions (October 24, 2008, and November 3, the same year) but she didn’t mention any such incident then.Regarding Pragya’s allegation of the ATS “illegally detaining” her prior to arresting her, the Supreme Court had relied on the Bombay High Court’s observations of 2010 that said she was neither detained, nor taken into custody. “Not once were the applicant’s (Pragya) movements restricted, nor was she confined to the ATS office after interrogation,” the high court had noted.