Reopen case against 8 cops for custodial death of Ziauddin in 2021: UP court

AYODHAYA: A court in UP’s Ambedkar Nagar has ordered reopening of a murder case against eight policemen in connection with the custodial death of a 37-year-old man in 2021.
Chief judicial magistrate Sudha Yadav based her order on injury marks documented in the postmortem report, rejecting the police’s final report, which claimed that Ziauddin died of a heart attack.
On Saturday, Ambedkar Nagar SP Kaustubh appointed DSP Devendra Maurya as the new investigating officer, following court directives issued ten days prior.
Police had detained Ziauddin on March 25, 2021, in connection with a robbery case while he was on his way to visit relatives.
His family accused the cops of kidnapping and murdering Ziauddin. Based on a complaint from Ziauddin’s brother, Shahabuddin, police filed an FIR against SWAT team incharge Devendra Pal Singh and seven other constables on March 26.
The court noted that medical report was inconclusive, lacking expert testimony on whether the injuries could have led to a heart attack. It highlighted Ziauddin’s age and the absence of pre-existing health issues, which contradicted the earlier finding of a heart attack.
On Oct 2, 2022, the then investigating officer Birendra Bahadur Singh had submitted a final report in the custodial death case, citing a heart attack as the cause of death and denying any torture in custody. In response, Shahabuddin filed a petition against this report, alleging multiple injuries on his brother’s body.
“We asked police, if he died of a heart attack, then why were there injury marks? His body bore signs of burns and beatings from belts and rods, with bruising below the waist. My brother died due to police torture,” Shahabuddin alleged, adding that the police filed the case against Ziauddin after the family and villagers protested outside Akbarpur police station.