Portion of the JIC report issued to the press

Report The 9th March, 2016 An unprecedented incident took place in the heart of the city of Dimapur in the State of Nagaland on 05.03.2015 which raised a serious question about the safety of prisoners in various Jails in the State of Nagaland. The incident had also a reflection on the Majesty of Law, Human Rights Violation of an Under Investigation Prisoner and Law & Order situation, and also to some extent effectiveness of Justice delivery system in the State of Nagaland. 2. In the afternoon of05 .03.2015 a mob of few thousand people took out a procession from City Tower, Dimapur City and made forcible entry in the Central Jail campus at Chumukedima, which is situated at a distance of about 7 Kms from the town. The crowd broke open nearly half a dozen iron gates to catch hold an accused of rape and give him instant punishment. Though the accused/deceased Sayed Sarif Khan was kept concealed in a solitary cell in an extreme corner of the jail campus the mob was successful to trace him out and forcibly dragged him out of the Jail and paraded the deceased again to the City Tower. During this long journey of 7 Kms the deceased/accused was stripped-off his cloths and mercilessly beaten by the crowd. As a result of random thrashing Sarif Khan died half-way. Despite that, the deceased was dragged by the crowd in dead condition and, finally, hanged him in the City Tower in presence of large number of Police and Para-military forces. At the fag end of the episode police personnel resorted to blank firing to retrieve the dead body. It was retaliated by the crowd. In the counter firing one person of the violent crowd, namely Shri Inito Chishi also lost his life. Besides casualty of two persons in the incident two NSA detenues also escaped from the jail. 3. The incident of Jail breaking and killing of an Under Investigation Prisoner (UIP) by a crowd, despite there being a Prohibitory Order issued by the District Magistrate UIS 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, drew attention of national and international community. Killing of an UIP after snatching him from the lawful custody was condemned by all law abiding citizens across the State and the country irrespective of caste, creed and religion. 4. The State of Nagaland also treated the incident as a heinous and serious crime and promptly ordered a judicial inquiry. Initially one man JTC was ordered vide Notification No CON-6/LOR-11/2006 (Vol-I) Dated 06.03.2015 to be headed by Shri Veprasa Nyekha, Retd District and Sessions Judge. Subsequently, vide Notification No. CON/OMJI/ 20/ 2015 Dated Kohima the l 61h May 2015 Justice (Retd) B D Agarwal, former Judge of Gauhati High Court, was appointed as the Chairman and Shri Veprasa Nyekha, as the Member of the JIC. The Inquiry Commission was constituted with the following terms of reference:- i) The causes and circumstances leading to the incident. ii) The person or group of persons responsible for the incident, including those who incited, encouraged or guided the crowd in committing the crime. (iii) Whether there were any lapses or dereliction of duty on the part of any official or public authority responsible for the maintenance of law and order: (iv) Whether the incident could have been avoided, and (v) How such incidents may be avoided in future. 40. Reference No. (iv) & (v): RECOMMENDATIONS Under this reference the Commission is expected to give suggestions to the Government as to how such incidents may be avoided in future and how the incident that took place on 51h March could have been averted. In the previous paragraph we have already summarized the lapses of executive and police officers. If the lapses and faults of officers found by the Commission would have been taken care of by the concerned authorities earlier the jail breaking incident would not have occurred. To prevent recurrence of similar incident in future we put forward few suggestions to the Government, which are albeit not exhaustive. For this purpose we have segregated our recommendations in different categories, which are given below. PRISON SECURITY 40.1 The Physical structure of a Prison should be very sound to keep the society out and to keep the inmates safe inside. Physical design and quality construction of a prison is as important as maintaining law and order inside the prison with the help of trained and skilled staff. The incident of Central Jail breaking that took place on 05.03.2015 demonstrates gross deficiencies both in the infrastructure and skilled manpower. The Commission intends to put forward the following suggestions to prevent any such incident in future in any jail in the State. A. INFRASTRUCTURE (i) STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF THE PRISON 40.2 On 05.03.2015 a mob of few thousand youngsters were able to make forcible entry deep inside the Jail premises though the protesters were not seen carrying instruments to pull down the walls and gates. This fact amply proves that the construction quality of walls and gates was very weak. Though the deceased Sarif Khan was shifted to a solitary consignment cell he was easily detected and dragged out by the mob. Hence, it is recommended that the prison department of the Government should prepare a model design of the prisons so that hardcore criminals and other important prisoners can be put in “Safe Cells”, where an outsider and even Jail Staff cannot reach easily. Besides this, the concerned department should also formulate and lay down official specification of the prison construction to prevent breaking of walls, gates, locks etc manually. In other words, the prison’ should be made of good quality materials and standard workmanship. 40.3 Though it is difficult to predict when and what incident may take place and in what form in future installation of CCTV Cameras at strategic positions with 360 degree viewing angle will help to detect and identify the culprits and also to know to modus- operandi of the criminals. (iii) SECURITY ALARMS 40.4 It is very common in community halls, high rise buildings and big installations to install security alarms at strategic points to alert the security staff and all persons to prevent any untoward incident. Hence, it is suggested that both switch and trip wire operated security alarms should be installed inside the prison campus at suitable locations. (iv) METAL DETECTORS ETC 40.5 It is seen that some prisoners are able to get access of arms and weapons inside the jail campus occasionally. It is also not uncommon that such criminals either cause physical harm to the co-inmates and sometime they also assault Jail Staff with the use of various kinds of weapons, illegally procured inside the jail, either to flee away from the jail or for other reasons. Import of arms and weapons become possible due to lake of proper frisking of the visitors. It has also been noticed that jail inmates very frequently import narcotic drugs and mobile phones inside the jail campus through visitors and also with the help of jail staff. Hence, providing metal detectors and other high tech equipments for frisking of visitors and jail staff are also necessary. Installation of High capacity Signal Jammers would also go a long way to prevent misuse of illegally procured cell phones by the prisoners. (v) MONITORING ROOM 40.6 We have already recommended installation of High-tech equipments and gadgets in the jail campus. However, without a fully equipped monitoring room it may not be possible to keep constant watch on the activities of the prisoners. A centralized monitoring room would not only help the jail authorities to monitor the movements of the prisoners but it will also help them to supervise the activities of their own staff inside the jail campus and upon the visitors. Hence, it is recommended that a “Monitoring Room”, fully equipped with state of art and technology should be established in each prison. Such monitoring rooms should be manned by trained persons with walkie-talkies of high frequency. (vi) WATCH TOWERS 40.7 Though it is very common to provide watch towers in all the corners of the jail campus their proper utilization has not been ensured. The security persons manning such watch towers are not provided with high tech gadgets, such as walkie-talkies, security alarms and DVR monitors etc. Providing all these equipments in the watch towers will help in controlling any untoward incident inside the jail campus. (vii) RIOT CONTROL EQUIPMENTS 40.8 The incident of 05 .03.2015 could have been prevented had there been sufficient number of water cannons, tear gas grenade guns, rubber bullet guns, protective shields, helmets, bullet proof vehicles and batons with security personnel. From the evidence of the witnesses it appears that only one water cannon was available under Dimapur DEF but the said water cannon could not be sent to the site as the roads were blocked by the protestors. Similarly, the security personnel were also short of riot control equipments and non-use of available equipments for want of orders from senior Police and Executive Officers. It is a different issue as to why there was no order for heavy lathi charge, continues bursting of tear gas shells and firing upon the crowd. Hence, storage of all varieties of “Riot Control Equipments” in limited number in all the police stations and .also inside the jail campus is advisable for use in emergency. Such equipments may be used by jail staff and also by the security personnel to prevent sudden riot in public places and also in the jail campus. B-TRAINING 4 I. Training to the Govt. officers is as important as formal education to run the administration. Without continuous training the officers become weapons without ammunition. In such training courses and seminars the officers get an exposure to know how difficult situations can be dealt with. The officers also get the opportunity of viewing visuals of riot control techniques adopted at other places and sometime practical demonstrations are also given. As a whole, training gives different ideas to the officers to deal with violent mob/crowd, which has become every day’s affair. Involving officers in the conferences and seminars boost the confidence and authority level of the officers and also educate them about the use of science and new technologies. Along with the training the officers can also be sent on deputation to other States, who can import new ideas for their home State. 41.1 During their oral evidence before the Commission many officers admitted that they had no occasion to attend training and conferences and more particularly in the field of “Crowd Management”. The incident that took place at the Central Jail at Dimapur on 05.03.2015 could have been dealt with more professionally had the police and executive officers were given the opportunity to undergo correctional courses with regard to controlling mob violence. In comparison to large scale mob violence seen in other parts of the country the violent protest that took place at Dimapur on 05.03.2015 can be termed as mini size protest, comprising of few thousand students of whom majority were girl students. Despite this fact, both civil and police administration of Nagai and failed to maintain law and order and despite availability of security forces in adequate strength they could not prevent the crowd in abducting the rape accused Sarif Khan from inside the jail. The executive officers and security forces appear to have surrendered before the small crowd for no valid reasons. They could not muster the requisite courage to exercise powers vested with them under the law. Had the officers given out-side exposure they could have faced the situation more professionally and efficiently. 41.2 Hence, the Commission recommends that both Executive and Police Officers should be given regular training to apprise them the development of law, technology, skills of crowd management, their powers and limitations to use force to disperse crowd in particular and also to get knowledge of high-tech gadgets and their effective use to deal with changing scenario in the form of organized and Un-organized mob violence. C-TRANSFER POLICY OF THE OFFICERS 42. What has transpired from the statements and oral evidence of the witnesses, the life of accused Sarif Khan could not be saved and the trespass of anti-social elements deep inside the Central Jail could not be prevented due to lack of devotion in the duty by the administrative and police officers. Though the protestors took more than two hours to reach the Central Jail from the City Tower and took more than three hours in breaking the Jail gates and taking away the raped accused the government officers could not prevent them in violating the prohibitory order with impunity. In this way, the students and other hooligans made a mockery of the statutory order passed by the District Magistrate under Section 144 Cr PC and the crowd” also seems to have undermined and challenged the power and authority of the government. Both the Executive and Police Officers seems to have surrendered before a small crowd and utterly failed to maintain law and order. Allowing a crowd to defy prohibitory order with impunity and enter a highly secured place like Central Jail and forcibly snatching a prisoner and kill him in public view is not a healthy sign in the context of law and order of a State. 42.1 In our considered opinion the violence that took place in Dimapur Town on 05.03.2015 is the result of ineffective and erroneous handling of the situation. This can happen only when the officers in the helm .of affairs are either incompetent or lacks will to dedicate themselves to save the democracy and uphold the Constitution of India. Hence, we recommend that apart from giving extensive training to the officers, particularly in crowd management, it is also essential that only the officers of high integrity and ability are posted in sensitive places. We are also of the opinion that while selecting officers for posting in sensitive and important places political agenda should be totally left out of consideration. D- DETECTION & DEPORTATION OF FOREIGNERS 43. At the out-set of this Report, we have noted that the incident of 05.03.15 in the form of Central Jail breaking at Dimapur was the outcome of people’s grievance against the alleged inaction of the civil administration to detect and deport illegally migrated Bangladeshis in as much as one Syed Sarif Khan (an alleged IBI) had allegedly committed rape upon a Naga girl., Holding protests and demonstrations the people of Nagaland demanded handing over the said accused for giving instant punishment. Having failed to get the custody of the accused, a mob stormed the Central Jail and forcibly snatched the accused from the lawful custody and finally lynched him on the street. 43.1 Denizens of the State of Nagaland are living under a fear of being outnumbered by IBIs. To save and protect their identity and culture various organizations are holding democratic protests time and again and submitting memorandums to different authorities. There was a mass movement in the State of Assam in the early eighties against explosion of influx of migrants from Bangladesh. The movement ultimately resulted in signing of “Assam Accord” with the Government of lndia. Several steps were suggested in the ‘accord’ to protect the identity and culture of indigenous people, inter alia, by way of detection and deportation of foreigners. In view of unabated migration of IBls in the State of Assam the Hon’ble Supreme Court of lndia is also monitoring the issue. 43.2 Apart from establishing good number of Tribunals to decide the citizenship of doubtful foreigners the State of Assam has also undertaken the task of updating National Register of Citizens (NRC). This exercise is likely to give a clear picture of genuine Indian citizens living in the State of Assam vis-a-vis illegally migrated foreign nationals. 43.3 The State of Nagaland has already adopted the system of lnner Line Permit since British Rule. This provision was brought in this State through Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873. Despite existence of such stringent legal provision the influx of IBIs is still unabated. Hence, we feel that updating NRC in the State of Nagaland also would go a long way to solve the critical issue of detecting foreign nationals.