Hardik may attend funeral of Swetang, who died in custody
Ahmedabad : After the Gujarat High ordered a CID probe, nine policemen including two inspectors and a sub-inspector have been booked for the alleged custodial death of a 32-year-old man detained during Patel quota agitation. Hardik Patel, who is leading the agitation by Patel community for reservation under OBC quota, on Saturday said he is likely to attend funeral of the victim, Swetang Patel, on Sunday and warned that government will be held responsible “if anything happens”.
Assistant Commissioner of Police K D Pandya said police inspectors P D Parmar and R R Vasava of Bapunagar were among nine policemen booked in the Swetang Patel death case. “We had late last night registered an FIR in Swetang Patel’s death case against two police inspectors of Bapunagar, one D-staff PSI and six other policemen of D-staff for causing death,” Pandya told PTI. D-staff or detection staff is responsible for conducting investigations in cases filed with a police station.
However, advocate for the victim’s family B M Mangukia claimed that the FIR did not have names of all the police officials responsible for the alleged custodial death.
“We had demanded that all those responsible be named, but they (police) did not register an FIR as per our demand and left out many high ranking officials, including ACP. We do not want to make lower ranked policemen a scapegoat in the case,” Mangukia told PTI. “We sat in the police station for about five hours to register an FIR…. This is non-compliance of the high court order and a contempt of court as well,” Mangukia added.
Swetang was allegedly forcibly taken away by police on August 25. A plea was moved by Prabhaben Patel, Swetang’s mother, which said he was allegedly beaten by the police and ultimately he succumbed to the injuries.
The Gujarat High had ordered a second autopsy of the body which stated that he had died due to severe head injury. Observing that prima facie it was a case of homicide, the HC on Saturday directed the administration to file an FIR and also ordered a CID probe. Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat Model of development in the wake of the agitation by the Patel Community. “The Patel community, whose economic condition is relatively better than other communities in Gujarat, is now agitating for reservation in jobs and education exposing resentment among them,” Gogoi said.
