Pankaj Vajpayee 

Human Rights Defender

Uttar Pradesh

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on May 25,2020 regarding the arrest and torture of Mr. Pankaj Vajpayee by police officials over his request to start testing those showing symptoms of COVID-19 immediately. Mr. Vajpayee is a lawyer and human rights defender.

On May 5, 2020, Mr. Vajpayee visited the Bhelpur police station to demand that labourers in the neighborhood be tested for COVID-19 on an urgent basis. While policemen were consuming alcohol at the police station, they were annoyed at seeing him, and entered into an argument with him, chasing him away. 

At around 11 PM the same day, a group of drunk policemen barged into his residence and beat up his family members. They took him and his brother to the police station where he was tortured, and a friend who went in search of them was also detained. After Mr. Vajpayee’s medical examination, a fake medical report was presented to hide his injuries from police torture, based on which an official notice was given under Section 151 of IPC. Mr. Vajpayee was tortured again, and a medical examination conducted under orders of the ACM reported that bruises on Mr Vajpayee’s body were a result of excessive beating. 

Although he was released after police came to know about his connections with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), he was booked in a case under Sections 323, 504, 506, 427, 322and 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).