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A 35-year-old Hyderabad resident, an auto driver named Mohammed Irfan, died soon after being taken to the Rajendranagar police station for counselling over a marital dispute. While his family alleges that it was a case of police brutality, Rajendranagar police have claimed that Irfan died of a heart attack, and no violence was committed on their part.
Irfan was a resident of the Dargah Khaleej Khan locality in Hyderabad. On the night of Tuesday, May 13, his wife Nishad Begum’s family took him to the Rajendranagar police station to settle a marital dispute (over an extramarital relationship).
Both Irfan and Nishad’s families were present at the police station. Nishad told TNM that a few police personnel took Irfan away. “We couldn’t see him but we could hear him crying and screaming out of pain,” she told TNM.
Irfan’s elder brother, Mohammed Imran, said, “We rushed inside when we heard him screaming but they asked us to leave. When Irfan finally walked out, he seemed roughed up. His clothes were torn, he had injuries on his eye and under his ear, and he said his chest hurt. He collapsed on the stairs outside the police station,” he said.
Nishad too said that there were injuries on his face, sharing Irfan’s photographs after he collapsed.
The family said they first took Irfan to a private hospital nearby, where they were advised to go to Osmania General Hospital. The doctors at OGH declared him dead.
While the family awaits the post mortem report, Rajendranagar Station House Officer (SHO) K Kastro Reddy said that the post mortem examination found that he had died of a heart attack.
A case of suspicious death was registered under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). Kastro Reddy, who is investigating the case, said that they examined CCTV recordings and found no assault by the police.
When asked about the injuries, the police officer alleged that Irfan was likely beaten by his wife’s relatives before being brought to the police station. “We registered a case of suspicious death based on his wife’s complaint. She did not mention any assault,” he said.
Nishad and Imran, however, say that they were unable to communicate with the police clearly as they do not know Telugu.
Nisha and Irfan got married in 2015. They had three children – two daughters who are five and six years old, and a six-month-old boy.