NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday asked the Tihar jail authorities to place on record the CCTV camera footage of the prison cell where JNU student Sharjeel Imam, arrested under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, was lodged after he alleged that he was physically assaulted in prison.
Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat directed the jail superintendent concerned to be present before the court during the next hearing on July 20.
The plea, filed through advocate Ahmad Ibrahim, sought to place on record the information about the alleged assault and harassment on Imam on June 30 when 8-9 inmates along with the assistant superintendent allegedly entered his cell on the pretext of carrying out a search.
“Let the concerned jail superintendent be also present on the next date of hearing for assisting the court in disposal of the present application. Let the register of the inmates/sewadars, who participated in the said surprise search, as stated, may also be produced in the court on the next date. Let the CCTV footage of all the said three cameras for 30.06.2022 for the period 6.00 PM to 8.00 PM be also produced on the next date i.e. 20.07.2022,” the court order stated.
Imam submitted that there were two CCTV cameras installed in his cell, and the third one was just outside.
In his written reply, the jail superintendent claimed that the allegations are “wrong, false and denied word by word”. The officer stated that it is vehemently denied that a search operation is not permissible by convicts and can only be carried out by jail authorities. It further stated that there is no prohibition in the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018, for assigning duties to sevadars in assisting the jail staff in search.
The jail superintendent also denied that during the search, Imam’s belongings were thrown and he was assaulted and called “terrorist” and anti-national”.
According to the reply, the accused was allegedly threatening the jail authorities to file false complaints against them. The jail authorities issued a punishment against the accused for breaching jail rules. No incident of assault happened as alleged, the superintendent stated.
