PATIALA: The 60-year-old
Abdul Gafar, a travel agent by profession, died inside premises of
Patiala Central Jail on Saturday wee hours. The family of the deceased claimed that he was tortured by the jail officials with whom Abdul had a heated argument over denial of permission to offer his prayers.
The body of the deceased was brought to the government Rajindra hospital for post-mortem. The health authorities immediately constituted a panel of two doctors to conduct the post-mortem. The deceased was about to complete his 13-months jail term in September this year. However, the jail officials claimed the death of Abdul was a suicide.
Abdul, who hails from Malerkotla of
Sangrur district, was sentenced to 10 months in jail last year along with a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh by a local court in Patiala. His imprisonment was extended for three more months following his failure to pay the fine. He was convicted in a case of cheating and other sections of
Indian Penal Code on the complaint of Kashmira Singh of Patiala.
The family of the deceased alleged that complainant’s son was a police officer and had continuously threatened Abdul in jail to torture him to death. Abdul is survived by wife Kirna Begum and two sons and a daughter.
"Only two days ahead of this incident, Abdul had informed the family members over phone that he is being threatened. He was convicted in a cheque bounce case. On Friday he had sought permission to offer Namaaz but was not allowed following which he landed in arguments with the officials. Now the jail officials want to show this murder as a suicide but the question arises why Abdul, who was about to complete his jail term in the next two months, would commit suicide?”, said, Mohammad Ashfaq, son of Abdul’s brother.
Patiala Jail Superintendent Rajan Kapoor refused to comment on the case for now.
