NHRC asks UP: Why 2,000 custody deaths in 5 years?

Times of India: lucknow: Friday, November 24, 2017.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to inspector general (IG) of prisons, UP, seeking response in six weeks on a complaint filed by a human rights activist alleging death of over 2,000 prisoners in judicial custody in the past five years.

As per the data provided, on an average, one prisoner died in UP's prisons every day. The notice came a day after the NRHC had issued a notice to UP government over 550 police encounters since the BJP government came to power in March 2017.

The complaint claims overcrowding, poor health of prisoners and non-compliance of norms by jail authorities among major reasons for casualties.

NHRC said that, if true, the allegations raise "serious issue of violation of human rights" and has sought a detailed report from IG prisons. The RTI response reveals that 360 prisoners died in 2012, 358 in 2013, 339 in 2014, 359 in 2015, 412 in 2016 in UP jails. In 2017, 188 prisoners lost their lives till July.

Agra-based activist, Naresh Paras, had filed an RTI query with UP prisons administration and reform services in July seeking the number of deaths in judicial custody in UP prisons.

When he got the reply in October, Paras found that the prisoners who died were mostly between 25 to 40 years in age. "Almost 50 per cent of those who died were undertrails, whose crime was yet to be proved. No reasons for death were mentioned but during my visits to jails, officials told me that prisoners primarily die of tuberculosis (TB), asthma and high blood pressure," said Paras.

The activist said that overcrowding in jails facilitated spread of contagious diseases like TB.

"The Agra jail has capacity of 1,015 prisoners but it houses around 2,600. The central jail has a capacity of 1,110 inmates but 1,900 are lodged there," Paras said.

"Jails are supposed to reform a person and send him back as a changed person if he committed a crime. Many of those who died were not even proven criminals. Their human rights were curbed in deplorable conditions," he said while demanding constitution of a monitoring group to probe the deaths and inspect jails at regular intervals.