Mid-Day:
Mumbai: Friday, May 10, 2019.
Was
denied CCTV footage from the police station twice under the pretext of secrecy;
gets it four months later, in final appeal
A
51-year-old resident of Chembur, allegedly verbally abused inside the premises
of Chembur police station, has resorted to Right To Information (RTI) to
procure the CCTV footage of the incident but was refused information at the
first go. This comes two days after mid-day had highlighted the plight of
Sachin Jaiswar's family after his alleged death because of police atrocity at
the Dharavi police station. In both cases, cops refused to provide CCTV footage
of the police station under the RTI Act citing section 8 (I) (H) (information
which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution
of offenders)
It
took Chembur's Salma Qureshi almost four months to procure the footage of
locals verbally abusing her when she reached the station to file an FIR over a
family dispute. A senior police inspector had also misbehaved with her then,
she had alleged. With nowhere to go, she decided to file a case against the
culprits but did not have any concrete evidence. She thus zeroed in on the RTI
Act but that wasn't an easy task either.
The
RTI Act works in three phases. If a request for information is rejected at
first, a person can file two appeals. "My application was rejected at the
first stage saying footage inside a police station could not be provided owing
to limitations. In fact, they even refused to provide the footage from outside
the station. This would have shown all the culprits abusing me. On my second
and last appeal, the appellant authority - DCP hearing my case, passed an order
in my favour. Finally, I got the footage," said Qureshi. "Under the
act, police can't refuse to provide CCTV footage inside their station as it is
public property. Usage of section of secrecy under the act is
inappropriate," she added.
The
family of Sachin Jaiswar, whose body is still lying in the JJ Hospital morgue,
is waiting to conduct his last rites. His father Ravindra Jaiswar, who has
claimed that his 17-year-old son died because the cops thrashed him inside the
police station over a mobile theft, had also resorted to the RTI Act but the
cops have refused to provide him the footage too. Jaiswar was allegedly beaten
up in custody on July 12, 2018 for 22 hours.
"If
the Chembur police station can provide the footage, why can't they (Dharavi
police)? This proves that the police are trying to hide evidence. They beat our
son in front of me so I know the truth. But no one would raise this issue since
we are poor, but I won't give up." On Thursday, the aggrieved father
released a video which is now being circulated across social media where he has
sought help from the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the Prime Minister to
get justice for his son.
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