New Delhi, July 20, 2023 (PPI-OT): A 22-year-old Muslim youth died in the police custody after he was held by the local police over the suspicion of theft in Indian state of Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh district. While the police claimed that the deceased Mohammed Ashfaq Khan has died by suicide, the family members alleged that Khan was tortured whole night in the police custody.

Following the death, family members along with local people blocked the Hazaribagh-Jhanbad Road and raised slogans against the administration. A video which has gone viral shows that wailing mother and sister of the deceased are pleading before senior police official demanding that her son is given back. His mother also points fingers towards police official saying that her son has been beaten to death by the police.

Talking to local media, Khan’s father said “the police administration killed my son. The man who killed my son should be given death penalty”. A relative of Khan said that on Monday, a neighbor claimed that something has been stolen from his house. They suspected that it’s Khan who is involved in this. They dragged Khan to the Barhi Police Station. The police kept him in the custody without informing his parents.

“The police kept him whole night. No one knows that what they did to him. In the morning, I came to know about his dead body… I suspect that he was brutally beaten up in the custody. When they brought him to the hospital, he was declared as “dead”,” said the relative. Khan was the only earning member of his house and he worked as a car driver. Manzar’s father suffers from paralysis.

Zahid Khan, uncle of Khan, refused to believe that his nephew hanged himself calling police claim “weird”. “When Khan was caught allegedly for stealing, I was told that police beat him up. Also, the whole theory that he strangled himself is very weird. We were told that he tore his trousers and hung himself. Now, I am listening to something new that he strangled himself. It is not possible, and I am assuming that he was beaten up in the lock-up,” Zahid was quoted by Indian media as saying.

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