Mother of Man in Viral Video Claims He Died Post Police Custody

Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam & Purnendu Pritam
Camera: Shiv Kumar Maurya
Producer: Rupsha Bhadra

“He never attended any protest. In fact, he would scold me for participating at the sit-in,” recounts a teary-eyed Kismatoon, the mother of 23-year-old Faizan, who died after a video of him and others being beaten by the police went viral.

As flames of unrest engulfed one neighborhood after another on 24 February, a video of cops beating five bleeding youths, while asking them to sing Jana Gana Mana went viral on social media. Among those youth, who were seen lying on a street, was Faizan from Kardampuri, who eventually passed away in a city hospital, late on 26 February.

The Quint spoke to his family members to understand the sequence of events leading to his death.

Kismatun says that on 24 February, Faizan had gone near the Babarpur metro station to bring her back home, after hearing about tensions simmering in the area. But neither Kismatun nor Faizan could find each other at the protest site. Instead, she returned home to find her son missing and ran from pillar to post in search of him, before being told that he was at GTB hospital.

“He must have got stuck there, while looking for me and someone must have beaten him. At 8 pm, someone informed that Faizan was at the hospital, GTB. But, we couldn’t find him there as well.”

Kismatun, Faizan’s Mother

Later that night, Kismatun claims that she and her family members reached Jyoti Nagar Police Station, where the police allegedly told her that her son was in the lock up. She pleaded with them that her son is innocent and that she should at least be allowed to meet him. But all her prayers fell on deaf ears.

At 11 pm on the same night, she returned home without her son.

Hopeful that the police would set Faizan free, she returned to the police station at 8 am on the morning of 25 February. But instead of getting a glimpse of her son, she was allegedly threatened with detention. “When I pleaded with them that my son is innocent, they misbehaved with me and threatened to put me behind bars,” she asserts.

According to Kismatun, at 11 pm that night, she was informed that the police wants parents of those held to be taken back home. She claims that upon reaching the police station, she was not given any receipt or document that would prove that her son was in police custody.

“They made three slips before releasing Faizan and others, but didn’t provide us with even a photocopy of it. They didn’t give us any document to prove that he was behind bars.”

Kismatun, Faizan’s Mother

Kismatun says that the family then returned home with a restless son, whose body had swollen to such an extent, that they had to cut his clothes with a scissor. “They had beaten him so much, that there were cuts on his head, his body had turned blue and swollen,” she says.

The next afternoon, she took her son to Urban Hospital (LNJP), where he breathed his last at 11 pm. The Quint has seen a copy of the death certificate which states that Faizan was brought to the hospital on 26 February and died slightly after midnight on 27 February.

While denying that the five were beaten up by police officers, Alok Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police said “The injured informed the police after reaching hospital that they were beaten up by the mob. Hence, the FIR is only against unknown people. A departmental inquiry has been set up against the policemen who made them sing the national anthem. They have not been identified yet, because their faces are not visible in the video.”

But it wasn’t until Faizan’s death that his family had a look at the video of him and others being beaten by the police. “Imagine, what it must have felt like,” laments his brother.

Explaining the extent to which Faizan allegedly was beaten up, his brother Nadeem says “when Faizan came back home, we asked him for his phone. He said his phone wasn’t working. Imagine, if his phone was broken and bent like this, what had happened to him.”

Lamenting the loss of his brother, Naeem asked “we can get a new phone, but can we get our brother back?”

Meanwhile, Faizan’s family received a compensation of one lakh from the Delhi government on Monday, 2 March. Sources in the government said that verification in his case has been done and the remaining nine lakh will be transferred to the family’s bank account in the coming days.