Activist Talib Hussain who led the campaign demanding justice for 8-year old Kathua girl has been booked by the Jammu and Kashmir police on for attempting suicide in police custody. According to a report by local daily Greater Kashmir, Hussain was booked on Monday under section 309 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) at Samba police station.
However, Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising claimed that Talib Hussain was tortured in police custody had sustained head injuries.
"Talib has been sent back to the same police station in Samba where he was assaulted. Samba hospital did not allow Talib’s relatives to meet him there. Relatives saw him at the police station. Head was bandaged, bleeding," she claimed in a tweet on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will tomorrow hear a plea alleging that Hussain is being tortured by the Jammu and Kashmir police in an alleged fake rape case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices D Y Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee considered the submission of a close relative of Hussain, seeking urgent hearing on the plea.
A habeas corpus (produce the body) writ petition has been filed by the cousin of the witness. It alleges that Hussain has been kept in illegal detention and being subjected to custodial torture.
Hussain was arrested on August 1 on charges of sexual assault and illegal possession of weapons. This came after his estranged wife had filed a domestic violence case against him.
Hussain's family alleged that he is being tortured in police custody in a fake rape case.
Jaising, counsel for the petitioner, said Hussain has been subjected to torture in Sambha in the state and they are seeking "judicial intervention" in the matter.
Hussain had led a campaign for justice for in the Kathua gang rape case, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community disappeared from near her home in a village close to Kathua in the Jammu region on January 10. Her body was found in the same area a week later.
The state police's Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main charge sheet against seven persons and a separate charge sheet against a juvenile in a court in Kathua district. The charge sheet has revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed.
(With PTI inputs)
