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A Delhi court Friday said there was sufficient evidence to proceed against a former Deputy Superintendent and five other Tihar jail staffers for the death of a 29-year-old inmate, Ankit Gujjar, who was found dead inside the prison complex.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Anjali Mahajan said the chargesheet and annexed documents “reveal that the allegations levelled against the accused persons and the material on record is prima-facie sufficient to proceed with the case”.
Narender Kumar Meena, the then Deputy Superintendent, Central Jail number 3, was accused of harassing Gujjar, who had multiple criminal cases against him, for money. It has been alleged that when Gujjar was not able to meet the demands, the accused along with other jail staffers, Ram Avtar Meena, Dinesh Chhikara, Harfool Meena, Vinod Kumar Meena and Deepak Dabas, “brutally beat Ankit Gujjar with kicks and polycarbonate lathis”. Gujjar succumbed to his injuries on August 4, 2021, due to lack of proper medical attention.
The court has taken cognizance under IPC sections 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 24 (dishonestly).
The CBI, which is investigating this case, has told the court that “during investigation, seven polycarbonate lathis having possible traces of blood were recovered from Central Jail number 3”.
“As per FSL report, from two of the polycarbonate lathis, DNA profiles were generated, which were found matching with the mixed DNA profiles of the inmates Ankit Gujjar, Gurjeet and Gurpreet,” the agency submitted.
Inmates Gurpreet and Gurjeet, who have been cited as witnesses, corroborated the prosecution’s allegations. “There are inter alia witness statements of co-inmates of the deceased on record, which prima facie also corroborate the prosecution’s version. The post-mortem report of the deceased mentions the cause of death being haemorrhage consequent upon cumulative effect of multiple blunt force injuries sustained to the body, and time of death… coincides with the alleged incident,” the court said.
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