“Ek haath aur pair beyd se bandh rakhe the. Usme [electric] shock de rahe the (My hand and leg were tied with chain. They were giving electric shocks through it),” he said.

This is Ashok Kumar. In the rush to solve the September 8 murder of Pradyuman Thakur in Ryan International School, Bhondsi near Gurugram, the police had arrested Kumar as the accused.

Pradyuman, the seven-year-old student of Ryan International School, was killed inside the toilet of the school around seven in the morning. News had spread like forest fire and in hardly hours’ time, the school had turned into base camp for the TV media crews. The frenzied mob outside wanted to tear down the school building. The pressure was mounting on the police. Later in the day, police sources informed journalists in the premises that three people have been zeroed in on, a bus conductor (Ashok Kumar), a bus driver and a gardener.

When asked about the place and time of torture at the top of the article, he added, “I didn’t know what time of day it was or how the days passed. I was kept in a dark room inside the Sohna police station.”

While the media was busy floating theories about the murder, it was the 42-year-old Kumar who was being grilled by police. According to Kumar, the police had decided that he was the murderer within minutes after it reached the school.

“The police officer kept a hand on my chest and asked me – why are you shivering? And then he told his senior, ‘yahi hai (he is the one)’ I was taken to the washroom in the principal’s room, where they punched and kicked me,” Kumar told this correspondent. He added the police officer said, “Why did you kill the boy? And he asked me to follow him to the police station.”

Ashok Kumar at his residence.

This branch of Ryan School comes under the Bhondsi police station, however, Kumar and his family claimed he was taken to Sohna police station. What followed was custodial torture of the worst kind. Kumar said he was beaten with sticks, boots, electrocuted. The police allegedly would beat him up in a particular pattern until he lost consciousness. The moment he would wake up, a new mode of torture was applied.

“Mere kapde utharwa diye. Paon bandh kar ulta latka diya (I was asked to remove my clothes after which I was hung upside down,)” Kumar said, pointing at this legs. Sticks were hurled at him from both sides, usually on the feet and near the ankle. “I kept shouting. Told them, I have done nothing. But they wanted me to confess to the crime,” he said. Allurements also came along with torture – probably to make him say things which could be used as “accused’s statement” first to the media and later in the court. “‘We will provide you a government advocate. You will be out in 15 days,’ they would tell me during the breaks which they took while beating me. This was followed by threats such as, ‘If you don’t speak as we want, we will kill you.’”

He fell unconscious. The next time, he was hung he was “murga bana ke latka diya (like a chicken).” And the ordeal continued.

Ashok Kumar, a resident of Ghamroj village, lives with his family. He had joined Ryan School in February this year as they paid better than the previous employer – a local school in his village. His 30-year-old wife Mamta and his father 62-year-old Ani Chand were also employed by his former employer. Short, Kumar is a lean and thin man. Whatever he went through inside that room in Sohna has wrecked him, physically and emotionally. Even though more than three months have passed, he hardly gets any sleep in the night due to unbearable pain in his legs and chest.

Ashok Kumar’s home

“They kicked me on my chest with boots on. It hurts when I cough,” Kumar said. While Kumar was in police custody, his family didn’t know what exactly was going on. The police had asked for his identity proof. “We sent someone with the ID card, but the police asked us to hand it over a few meters. We were not allowed to enter the school or meet Kumar,” Om Prakash, a distant relative, told  Newslaundry. Kumar’s father and wife are illiterate. They were unable to fathom what’s going on. Prakash, a retired government employee, was the one coordinating with the media and later with his advocate.

Meanwhile, Kumar added that when he fell unconscious after being beaten he was lying on the ground. When he gained consciousness, he found “bhed (chains)” on his hand and leg which were tied together. “Usme shock de rahe the (they were giving electric shocks),” Kumar said. “Gali de rahe the – saale ko maro (Police was using cuss words – as they beat me up),” he said. While describing the pain and the torture, he smiled often especially when giving the specific details.

When Kumar woke up, the police allegedly gave him an injection. “They said it will comfort me.  Uske baad ka kuch  nahi pata, injection ke baad kuch hosh nahi raha kya bola, kahan le ja rahe hain, kahan sign kara rahe hain (After that injection, I could recall nothing. Where did they take me, what did I say and what they made me),” he added.

The same night, Deputy Commissioner of Police Simardeep Singh, who was officiating as Gurugram Commissioner, told the media that Kumar was the murderer. “It was just a chance that he came to the toilet and Ashok tried to sexually assault him. Since the boy resisted, he murdered him.” There were two slit marks on Thakur’s neck. On September 8, Singh had told this correspondent, “We were reconstructing the scene of the crime. We had detained a few people and were questioning them… We studied some CCTV footage and other evidence, and based on these evidences zeroed in on Kumar.”

Kumar’s family in Ghamroj got the confirmation only after the news flashed on the TV. “News mein dekha. (I saw this on news.) I couldn’t trust whatever was coming on the news,” Mamta told Newslaundry. Her husband was accused of trying to sexually assault and kill a boy as old as their elder son. Kumar has two sons – one aged seven and the other three.

For media personnel, the story was over. The police had got a hand of the accused who had confessed, they had also recovered the knife used for the crime and CCTV footage to substantiate their claims.

Kumar, however, claimed that torture didn’t stop until he was presented to the court. “They would put my hands in hot water, dip my head in cold water,” he added. “Ek din aankh mein khoon utar aaya  – jab unhone ulta latka  ke chhod diya (One day, it appeared I would bleed from my eyes as they had hung me upside for hours.)”

While he said he doesn’t know the name of those who tortured him, Kumar added some officers were in uniform while others used were in civilian clothes. He remained in police custody until he was sent to the jail by the magistrate on September 12.

According to Kumar, the physical torture stopped after he reached the jail but he was kept in isolation. “Do mahine ek hi kamre mein band rahe, khana bhi udhar hi aata tha. Ek mahina aur agar andar rehta to (I would have turned mad had I spent a month more inside the cell,)” he said.

Kumar’s family is indebted to Thakur’s father and mother. Even though for the media, the Gurugram police’s version was concrete, Thakur’s family disapproved it. Pradyuman’s father Varun Thakur had sought an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).  The Pinto family –which runs Ryan Schools – is closely associated with the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. This made Pradyuman murder case a high-profile one. Under pressure, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar ordered a CBI inquiry and the entire theory of Gurugram police crumbled. In November, the CBI presented a Class 11 student of the school, claiming that he had confessed to committing the crime in front of his father and an independent witness. While the 16-year-old was sent to juvenile custody, Gurgaon police were left red-faced.

When Kumar was released on bail, he panicked. “He had high fever, media had surrounded him and then there were villagers. He panicked seeing all this around him,” his cousin Rajiv told Newslaundry. Kumar was giving “interviews” on the TV channels while he was still down with fever and could hardly utter a word. For next two-three days of his release, the TV mics didn’t leave him alone.

Presently, two investigations done by two agencies are at loggerheads. The question which was lost in the entire hullaballoo is that what allows the police to use force –torture to make an accused confess to the crime. Or is there a sense of impunity in the police administration when it comes to custodial torture?

Even if Kumar is able to recover from the physical assaults, will he be able to ever come out of the emotional trauma that he has gone through? The family has virtually lost a bread-earning member for months now. It matters a lot for those like Kumar’s, which comes from the lower strata of society. Kumar himself has lost confidence. He refuses to get a complete body check-up done because he is afraid. “Esa lagta hai ki fir koi utha ke lekar …” and then stopped. His pained smile is unnerving.

We reached out to the Gurugram police over the serious allegation made by the conductor. Singh has been transferred to Sirsa district as Superintendent of Police. Sandeep Khirwar, the present Gurugram Commissioner of Police, told  Newslaundry, “I will not be able to assist you in any manner. This is something which is under investigation by the CBI.” When again asked about the allegations of torture, he said, “Look, we will respond to everything at the appropriate time. I will not respond to these questions right now.”

Even if the theory of the Gurugram police wins, what can justify torture? The data on custodial crimes in India is already reason for alarm. Kumar’s case could be one of the thousands of stories scripted and executed inside police stations. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), of the 92 custodial deaths recorded in 2015-16, 60 were of those arrested but not remanded.

Of the 60 cases, the magisterial inquiry was ordered only in 41 cases and cases were registered in 19. It is probably the fraternal spirit that stops police from filing chargesheets in such cases. Of the total 92 custodial deaths in 2016, chargesheets were filed only in 14. And when it came to conviction? It was a big zero.

The data for human rights violations reported against police personnel is no different. A total 209 cases, including fake encounters, torture and hurt/ injury, were reported in 2015-2016. While 73were found to be false, chargesheets were filed in 50 cases. The conviction rate was again zero.

Given that policemen get away with torture, can Ashok Kumar hold the policemen who tortured him accountable? It is indeed unlikely.