Bhubaneswar, Apr 1: In connection to a suspect being legally fettered and tortured in police custody, Odisha Human Rights Commission ordered the Odisha director general of police to initiate disciplinary proceedings against cops of a police station in Cuttack. Human rights activist Biswapriya Kanungo ordered the same alleging that two policemen of the Mahanga police unlawfully detained one Jagannath Das and kept him in police lockup under handcuffs. The victim was subjected to both physical and mental torture even if he was not involved.
The commission pointed out that guarantee of human dignity is included in the Constitutional culture in Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. Even a prisoner is a person and not an animal. Handcuffing is inhuman and therefore unreasonable. To fetter his limbs with hoops of steel, shuffle him along in the street and stand him for hours in the courts is to torture him, and defile his dignity.
