The Kerala government has made special medical test for suspects in police custody mandatory as part of the remand process. The order, issued on June 6, was based on the recommendation of Justice K Narayana Kurup Commission, which recently submitted its report in the Nedumkandam custodial death of 49-year-old Rajkumar. The Nedumkandam police in Idukki brutally tortured Rajkumar for almost three days before he eventually succumbed to his injuries on June 21, 2019. The judicial commission found that doctors in three different government hospitals in Kerala, on three different occasions, failed to report or identify injuries from custodial torture. Based on this, the report recommended special medical tests to rule out the “iceberg phenomenon,” which is the clinical situation where only a small proportion of the physical ailments or disease is seen outside or reported.
It must be noted that as part of the remand process, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has mandated that an accused or a suspect made to undergo a thorough medical examination in government hospitals at the time of admission in jail, to find out if the person is suffering from any disease. Besides, under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the arrested person has the right to be medically examined by a registered medical practitioner, either to disprove the commission of the offence, to establish any ill-treatment by the police or for other reasons. Accordingly, the medical officer will issue a fitness certificate before he/she is produced before the magistrate. However, in a few cases, it was found that the medical officers issued fitness certificate without thoroughly examining the arrested person.
As per the new directive by the Kerala government, special tests, including renal profile, creatine phosphokinase (CPK), urine myoglobin and C-reactive protein (CRP) and ultrasound scanning of the abdomen, must be carried out before the accused/suspect is admitted to prison from police custody. The Directorate of Health Services issued a circular in this regard on June 4, which stated, “The Director of Health Service and Director of Medical Education shall ensure that all persons brought from police custody shall be subjected to initial screening to unearth the iceberg phenomenon.” On June 12, the Kannur Central Prison and Correctional Home Superintendent issued the same guidelines to the district medical officer, prison officers and other officials in the district, to ensure if reports of the aforementioned tests are submitted along with warrant and health screening report while admitting a person to prison. Other prison officials of other districts, too, have reportedly issued similar orders.
The controversial Nedumkandam custody death case pertains to the death of 49-year-old Rajkumar, a resident of Kerala’s Idukki district. The Justice Narayana Kurup Commission found that Rajkumar, a small-time financier, was subjected to brutal torture by the officials of Nedumkandam police station, detaining him in illegal custody for three days. He was produced in court three days after his arrest, which is in violation of the law. Based on the findings of the commission, the state government dismissed five police officers and a home guard from service earlier this month.
The commission had also highlighted that the doctors ignored the signs of custodial torture. “The doctors in all the three hospitals forgot for a moment that Rajkumar was brought by the police in a moribund condition after making him mincemeat, unable to walk, speak or move. In such a scenario, they should have suspected custodial torture as borne out by his physical condition,” said the commission in its report.
In the report, the commission had recommended that renal profile, creatine phosphokinase (CPK), urine myoglobin and C-reactive protein (CRP) and ultrasound scanning of the abdomen, should be mandatorily done for prisoners to ensure they are not subjected to custodial torture.
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