Court gives 2-yr jail term to SP for custodial torture

Guwahati, June 21 (PTI): A district superintendent of police was sentenced to two years in jail by a Kamrup court near here for torturing an accused in custody five years ago. Kamrup Additional District and Sessions Judge sentenced Goalpara SP Amitava Sinha for subjecting one Gurmeet Singh, a murder accused, to physical torture in 2013, when Sinha was serving as the deputy commissioner of police with Guwahati Crime Branch. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Sinha, who, however, was also granted bail by the court, to appeal against his conviction and sentencing. Victim Singh had filed a complaint with the court alleging that Sinha along with three other policemen, whose names, he said he did not know, had subjected him to torture causing a fracture in his upper arm. The police officials had also abused him, casting racial slur and had used third degree measures on him on June 17 and 18, 2013, he had alleged.