Suicide of Ritesh on Account of Urwa Police Torture

|| Suicide of Ritesh Pais(19 years) on account of Urwa police torture and harassment ||
PUCL (Karnataka) Reports: On September 13, 2009 a local newspaper carried a small report about a 19-year old youth committing suicide allegedly due to ‘harassment by the police’. The next morning’s newspapers had further details of the incident. PUCL Mangalore decided to pursue this unusual case and ascertain the facts. A three-member team consisting of P.B. D’Sa, Victor D’Silva and Suresh Bhat went to the boy’s house at Barebail, Mangalore (which falls under the Kadri Police Station) in the morning at around 11a.m. on the 14th. The team had a detailed talk with the boy’s father Denis Walter Pais, aged 57 years and sister Renita, aged 27 years. The team has also been in touch with the IGP (Western Range) and the Mangalore district Superintendent of Police.

Denis Walter Pais had started his career as a turner at the local Commonwealth factory where he worked for about 23 years. Later he got an employment opportunity at Saudi Arabia. He came back to Mangalore in 1997-98 after spending one year at Bombay. In Mangalore he worked as a freelancer for about 8 years. He has stopped working since the past two years. He had two children, the girl Renita being the eldest and a boy Ritesh. Denis’s wife had been a teacher but died in 2003 due to cancer. Presently Renita is married and her husband is working abroad. She now resides at a place called Kulshekar.

The boy Ritesh was a bright student as can be ascertained from his school marks cards. He had passed SSLC (10th) in 2007 with 77.28% marks and had obtained a first class in the PUC (12th) examination. He had completed the latter in March 2009 and was preparing to join a Jetking computer hardware course for which he had already paid a fee of Rs 47,000. It is obvious that this middle class family is quite upright and law-abiding which is also confirmed by their neighbours.

Denis had happened to meet one Shamin D’Souza, aged about 29, and his mother at a local garage at Anegundi some four months ago. The acquaintance turned gradually into friendship and Shamin became a regular visitor to the Denis’ home. During this period Denis had advanced Rs 50,000 to Shamin without interest which Shamin wanted for starting a driving school. Shamin is presently said to be working as an instructor in a driving school. His father has separated from his wife and lives elsewhere. Shamin is married but his wife works abroad. Mother and son live together. Reportedly the mother has a loose character and the son is a womanizer and is involved in the blue-film racket apparently with the blessings of the Urwa police. Lately Shamin tried to obtain sexual favours from Renita but she had spurned his advances. One day he had accosted her near the Besant Women’s College where she had gone for a job interview. On that occasion too she had squarely rebuffed his advances and told her father not to entertain him in their house.

According to the father, Ritesh was from the beginning opposed to Shamin getting close to their family and had told the father so. But the father persisted. When Ritesh came to know of the Besant incident he was enraged. He told his friend and classmate Sudip, living at Daddalakaadu about it. This Sudip asked a common friend to tell Shamin to stop harassing Renita.

Shamin went to the Urwa Police Station which is just across the road from his house, and persuaded (bribed heavily) the Sub-Inspector C. Kiran to book false cases against Ritesh. Immediately an FIR was registered against Ritesh under IPC sections 504, 506, 507, 511 and 384! Against a 19-year old bright student with absolutely no previous record of any criminal/ illegal activities! When all that he had done was to try to safeguard the honour of his married sister which surely cannot attract the various IPC sections quoted in the FIR!

Shamin had simultaneously complained to the priest of the local Ashoknagar Church too. On August 27, 2009 Denis and Shamin and his mother were called by the priest and some sort of settlement was arrived at. Mother and son duly apologized to Denis who thought everything would now be fine. They said that a police complaint has also been lodged against both father and son but that would now be withdrawn in view of the settlement. But he got the surprise of his life when within a few days they were called to the police station! Both Denis and Ritesh were arrested. They were lodged at the local sub-jail. The jailer Puttanna Gowda forgot his jail manual and behaved with them in an extremely rude and insulting manner. In the course of their stay in the jail they came to know that prisoners of the saffron brigade were controlling the jail and assaulting prisoners belonging to minority communities.

They managed to contact a lawyer and obtain conditional bail. Which meant they had to report to the Urwa PS regularly. September 8th was the ‘Monthi’ festival (Mother Mary’s birthday). On that day the father and son duo were detained at the station for the entire day. The SI Kiran, Head Constable Shivappa Gowda and Constable Devayya insulted them and used abusive language. SI Kiran had reportedly told Ritesh “We’ll see how you’ll be able to complete your studies or obtain your passport.” Though out on bail, still they were called criminals. The policemen reportedly had called Ritesh “son of a prostitute.” Ritesh was terribly upset at this and the way his aged father was ill-treated.

On subsequent days the police came to their house some five times and all the time they were shouting abuses clearly audible to all the neighbours. Ritesh, apparently so unused to such repeated filthy behaviour and abuses, was so much upset that he refused to go to the station on 12th. On that day Renita had accompanied her father to the station. In front of her the police trio once again used filthy language and ordered her father to get up from the chair to which she objected. Then they tried to threaten her with women constables advancing menacingly towards her. When father and daughter returned home in the evening they found the door to the hall locked. Despite several shouts Ritesh did not open the door. Then they contacted the Kadri PS. Kadri policemen arrived and forced the door open. Ritesh was found in his room dead by hanging. But he had written a suicide note which the Kadri police snatched and took away. Under pressure from the media they had to divulge its contents later. In his letter Ritesh is said to have begged forgiveness from his father and sister and squarely accused the three policemen – S.I. Kiran, Head Constable Shivappa Gowda and Constable Devayya - of having driven him to take this extreme step for the false case booked against him and their persistent harassment. It is pertinent to mention here that Ritesh has not blamed his father and sister as claimed by the SP.

CONCLUSION
This should have been a clear-cut case. There is a formal suicide note here which names certain policemen of having abetted in his suicide. Normally in all such cases the police routinely file an FIR and arrest the named persons with lightning speed. We suspect foul play by the police who will definitely try to destroy the suicide note and defend their colleagues. But in this case apparently efforts are on to protect the guilty policemen. Though District Superintendent of Police has announced an inquiry into the incident by the ASP, in our opinion this is nothing but eyewash. We demand that immediately FIRs must be registered against the three guilty policemen, Shamin and his mother who are the root cause of the entire episode. And arrest all these culprits. Avoiding taking action against the accused policemen under the pretext that the morale of the police force will be adversely affected is not only a wrong interpretation but it is a most dangerous step. As it would encourage the policemen to continue with their human rights violations such as atrocities, torture and other third-degree methods thus indulging in open violation of the Supreme Court’s directive on the right to life with dignity. Let the courts decide the matter.

In this connection we wish to state that the local police force is rotten to the core with majority sticking on for years in the same place and a large majority covertly and overtly siding with the Constitution-defying saffron brigade. We once again stress the importance of punishing the guilty policemen. This will most definitely send the right message to the people. And the criminals. And the fundamentalist groups like the saffron brigade.

Yours faithfully,

Sd./-
P.B. D’Sa
District President