However, according to the police, Ramzan, an inmate of the Kota central jail serving a sentence for murder, died at the New Medical College Hospital (NMCH) on Friday night after a prolonged illness.
Family members of Ramzan had carried out a protest on Saturday as they accused the police of beating and thrashing him.
Two policemen have been sent to lines as disciplinary action after protest.
Ramzan was a resident of Baran district’s Mangrol town and was serving a sentence in the Baran District Jail following his conviction under Section 347 (wrongful confinement to extort property) of the Indian Penal Code, after the Rajasthan High Court rejected his appeal.
President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Kavita Shrivastva has written to the chairperson of the NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) over the custodial death of sick and elderly Muslim prisoner Mohammed Ramazan and demanded judicial inquiry into incident.
Seeking the intervention of the NHRC, she also demanded “immediate lodging of the FIR against the police guards involved in the custodial violence leading up to death of Ramzan”.
“Communally targeted violence by the authorities raises a serious concern of human rights violations of minorities present inside the various correctional institutes across the nation. Ramzan’s family has suffered a great loss, and a speedy inquiry would give them some solace in these troubling times,” Srivastva said in her letter dated 28 April to the chairperson of the NHRC.