A 28-year-old woman was found hanging in a Bihar police station past Sunday midnight, hours after she was “rescued” by the police from Patna Junction railway station on a complaint filed by her husband who alleged she was abducted on May 21, police said.
The woman, who was found at the railway station 100 km from her house in Nalanda district, told the police team that she left on her own with a 34-year-old auto-driver, Luv Yadav, the man accused by her husband of abducting her.
S Hariprasath S, the Nalanda district police chief, said the woman was handed over to the district’s Rahui police after her rescue at the Patna Junction station. The woman, who has three children, was held overnight in a room at the police station so that she could be produced before a magistrate on Monday to record her statement. Luv Yadav, the man accused of abducting her, was in the lockup.
Police believe that she died by suicide around midnight. When the police personnel found her hanging by her sari, she was taken to the Biharsharif Sadar Hospital. Doctors told the police that she was dead.
Hariprasath said he suspended the officer on duty, the investigating officer and a woman cop on grounds of dereliction of duty. A medical board was also constituted to conduct the autopsy since this is a case of death in police custody.
An inquiry has been ordered to investigate lapses in the police’s handling of the case.
“The CCTV footage has also been preserved to facilitate the inquiry,” the Nalanda superintendent of police said.
Traffic was disrupted in the area around the police station after scores of people gathered outside the station, accusing the police of torture. They demanded that an FIR be registered against the police personnel as well.
This is the fifth reported case of death in police custody in Bihar.
January 10: Dharmendra Manjhi, 34, who was arrested on charges of liquor smuggling, died when he was being taken to the police station from the court in Patna. Police had cited Manjhi’s ill health for his death.
February 23: A 32-year-old Shailesh Pandey arrested for allegedly killing his three-month-old daughter in Bihar’s Saran district was found hanging at Avtar Nagar police station lock-up.
February 28: Thirty-four-year-old Mohammad Imran alias Ekka, who was arrested on the charges of murder of a woman was found dead in Baunsi police station lockup under mysterious circumstances.
March 9: A 35-year-old man, Amarjit Choudhary, who was detained for questioning on the charges of torture of his family members, died in the custody of the Kathara police outpost of Patepur of Vaishali district.
