Parvez Sheikh and others 

HRDs of Popular Front of India (PFI),

Rajasthan

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on December 30, 2021, regarding the ill-treatment, abusive behaviour, racial and religious hate speech, lathi-charge, illegal arrest and custodial torture, against HRDs of the Popular Front of India (PFI), who were holding a peaceful marathon to raise health awareness in India.

HRDs of PFI conducted a health awareness on November 28, after informing the additional district magistrate on November 25. They did not hear any information regarding the Marathon until 27^th November. On the same day, the secretary of the PFI Parvez Sheikh received a notice from the Bhimganj police station. On 28^th Nov, members of PFI came to the police station, where Mr. Lal and Mr. Dadhich inspector in charge began verbally abusing the three HRDs publicly and when the HRDs protested such treatment and said that they will be complaining about it to senior police officials, the HRDs were assaulted by the two policemen. After some time, Ms. Chanchal Mishra, additional SP, arrived at the police station and the HRDs told her about this incident. Mr. Dadhich pulled Mr. Rizwan's beard in front of her. He also forcibly took Mr. Sheikh's cap, crumpled it and threw it but Ms. Mishra neither respond nor react to this or stop it. 

On Marathon Day, some people conducted the health marathon peacefully where again Mr. Lal and Mr. Dadhich arrived and started hurling abuses on the crowd and ordered a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd. 14 people were arrested under section 151 and 108 IPC including Mr. Sheikh, Mr. Rizwan, Mr. Imran and were taken to Kotwali police station and brutally tortured. After this police personnel took them to the Bhimganj police station, where they tortured one by one neither wearing name tags not identified. All these activities happened in front of the inspector officials of Bhimganj police. 

The actions of the police amount to custodial torture. Torture of any kind and under any circumstances is illegal. Furthermore, the police violate the DK Basu guidelines, Article-7 of an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and section-151, 141.