A 20-year-old homeless man accused of murdering his girl associate in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar was on Saturday allegedly flogged in public by police, hours after his arrest within the case.
Movies of the purported incident, which went viral on social media platforms, present police taking the accused Faizal alias Khatki Rafiq Lakhani, who was tied with ropes, across the GSRTC bus stand in Bhavnagar and holding him towards their patrol automobile, pillars and partitions on the premises and hitting him with their batons throughout the reconstruction of the crime scene.
Lakhani was arrested on September 4 by the Bhavnagar police for the alleged homicide of 40-year-old Kajal, with whom he lived on the road outdoors the bus stand.
On September 3, Lakhani had allegedly accosted Kajal and a mutual buddy, Ravi alias Boda Rajendra Gohel, on the primary gate of the bus stand and began beating them, accusing them of getting an affair whereas he was in jail in one other case. The assault was recorded within the CCTV cameras within the space. Kajal was declared useless the identical night time at Sir Takhtasinhji Common Hospital, Bhavnagar.
When requested concerning the movies of him and his group allegedly thrashing Faizal Lakhani in public, Police Inspector D P Unadkat, the SHO of Nilambaug police station, stated that the incident had taken place throughout reconstruction of the crime scene on Saturday (September 5). “We did it as a result of this can be a uncommon case,” he stated.
“He isn’t a gang member as such, however he’s within the behavior of being a nuisance. There are numerous others who interact in comparable actions. While you do that (flogging), miscreants stay afraid of the police. Once they do smaller crimes, they’re arrested after which launched on bail and so there’s a feeling that the police can not do something to them. After we do that, they worry the police,” Unadkat stated.
Following this purported flogging incident, Lakhani was produced earlier than court docket the place the Nilambaug police didn’t search his remand. He was despatched to judicial custody, stated Unadkat.
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The Indian Specific tried to achieve out to Unadkat’s superior officers, DySP RR Singhal of the Metropolis Division, in addition to Bhavnagar SP Nitesh Pandey. Nevertheless, each officers remained unavailable for remark.
Talking about Lakhani’s felony antecedents, Unadkat stated, “That is the primary homicide case towards him. He has been booked in six earlier instances together with abduction and assaulting cops and loot, amongst others. Three of the instances are in Nilambaug police station whereas the opposite three are at Vartej police station.”
The flogging incident got here every week after the Porbandar Police, on August 29, paraded two males, who have been tied with ropes, via Visavada village and made them apologise to the residents. The 2 males, Khoda Sajan Keshwala and Nagajan Kala Odedara, have been arrested by the Native Crime Department (LCB) on the cost of trying to homicide an aged musician who had been invited to play the shehnai (clarinet) at an interfaith perform within the village.
DGP KLN Rao, in a letter dated Might 12, had identified the legislation and laws associated to handcuffing of arrested individuals, tying them with ropes, and parading them on the streets, and ordered that “these actions usually are not as per established processes and ordered they they should be stopped forthwith”.
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“The picture of the Gujarat Police is tarnished due to actions reminiscent of handcuffing of the accused or tying them with ropes and publicly parading them and exhibiting off. Such inhuman behaviour additionally overshadows the great work of the police and leaves a foul impression of the police on the general public,” the letter, addressed to cops within the state, stated.
PUCL sends authorized discover
The Individuals’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Gujarat, on Saturday despatched a authorized discover to Chief Secretary, Extra Chief Secretary (Residence), Gujarat DGP, and Bhavnagar SP demanding motion towards Nilambaug police inspector Unadkat and different police personnel concerned within the public parading and torture of the homicide accused.
The discover, despatched by PUCL (Gujarat) basic secretary Mujahid Nafees via advocate Anand Yagnik, stated: “The legislation gives for a full-fledged mechanism to make sure investigation and punishment to the responsible. Nevertheless, some police personnel are taking the legislation into their very own palms and treating the drive as an authoritarian establishment. The police personnel flagrantly violating all protections given to the accused beneath the Structure of India is a trigger for disgrace and pressing motion should be taken towards them”.
Current instances
The Gujarat Excessive Courtroom on August 14 orally advised the federal government to switch IPS officer Rajdeepsinh Nakum, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Surat, saying his continued presence within the metropolis might undermine an inquiry into allegations that he and his group publicly beat and humiliated accused individuals. The Division Bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice D N Ray was listening to suo motu PIL over movies allegedly exhibiting handcuffed accused individuals being paraded and assaulted by police with lathis.
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Within the first week of Might 2026, 5 individuals moved the Gujarat Excessive Courtroom searching for motion towards 9 cops in Vadodara for alleged custodial torture, parading them in public and thereby committing contempt of court docket by violating the Supreme Courtroom’s order. The petition was filed by Sufiyan Mansuri, Shanawaz Kureshi, Junaid Sindhi, Anas Kureshi and Sadeka Sindhi, who had been arrested following communal disturbances in August 2025, allegedly after an incident of hurling eggs at a Ganesh procession throughout Navratri.
On Might 8, 2026, the Gujarat Excessive Courtroom stayed the summons issued to 6 police officers by a JMFC court docket in Matar, Kheda, over a October 4, 2022 incident in Undhela village the place males from the Muslim group have been allegedly tied to electrical poles and flogged in public by police following an alleged stone pelting incident at a garba occasion throughout Navratri. The Gujarat Excessive Courtroom had in 2023 held 4 police personnel responsible of contempt of court docket in the identical case, however the Supreme Courtroom later stayed the ruling.
