Thaindian News

Srinagar, Oct 9 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has spoken to union Law Minister Salman Khurshid to help expedite the nomination of a high court judge for the probe into the custodial death of a ruling National Congress (NC) worker, local reports said.

“The government is committed to an expeditious and transparent judicial probe into the incident so that the truth is revealed,” a source in the government told IANS.

A magisterial probe is already on in the custodial death of Sayeed Muhammad Yousuf Sep 30.

“Muhammad Akbar (additional district magistrate, Srinagar) has been provided with details of the FIR and the videographed report of the post-mortem,” an official said.

The officer said the probe is being held under Section 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc) pertaining to death of a person in custody and not under Section 174 of the CrPc, which deals with suspicious death.

“Section 174 CrPc included deaths during accidents, consuming poison or when the police officer feels somebody had died under suspicious circumstances. Whereas inquest under Section 176 CrPc is mandated only in case of a death that occurs in custody,” lawyer Suhail Ahmad explained.

The state government has not disputed that Yousuf died in custody. “All we are saying is that he died of natural causes and there is nothing to establish that Yousuf had been killed in custody,” a police officer said.

“The post-mortem report also confirmed Yousaf died of cardio-respiratory arrest and there were no torture marks or any other evidence that he had been subjected to third degree methods of interrogation,” he said.

However, Yousaf’s son Sayeed Talib had released a picture of his father’s body which he claimed bore marks of torture.