Penis-chopping police get an earful from apex court

Tuesday, Aug 31, 2010,

Penis-chopping police get an earful from apex court

The Supreme Court (SC) gave a dressing down on Monday to police who chopped off the penis of a man in police barracks at Barmer, Rajasthan, six years ago.

Terming the act “barbaric”, SC asked accused constable Kishore Singh and his two accomplices why they should not be awarded life sentences.

“How can you chop off the penis of a man? It is such a barbarian act. There is a limit even to nonsense,” an anguished bench of justices Markandey Katju and TS Thakur said.

“There is something called civilised behaviour,” the judges said while hearing a CBI petition seeking enhancement of the sentence given to the cops.

Station house officer Sohan Singh, assistant sub-inspector Sumer Dhan and Kishore Singh took Jugat Ram, an employee of a businessman, to the police barracks and chopped off his penis after subjecting him to torture in 1994.

The cops committed the gruesome act at the instance of Jugat’s employer Bhairav Singh. Jugat had allegedly developed an illicit relationship with Bhairav’s wife and daughter and admitted it.

The trial court ordered life imprisonment to all the three cops, but the Rajasthan high court acquitted Sumer Dhan and Sohan Singh saying there was no evidence against them and reduced the sentence of Kishore Singh to four years.

Kishore challenged the verdict in SC. His lawyer told the court that
there was no evidence against his client. But SC refused to accept his plea. “You are all policemen. You have chopped off the penis of a man after bringing him to police station. How can an independent witness speak against you?” the court said.

Asserting that delinquent and criminal policemen shouldn’t be allowed to go scot-free, the judges said otherwise “today you have chopped off somebody’s penis, tomorrow you will chop off someone’s head. You can go to any extent. There has to be a strong and deterrent punishment”.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_penis-chopping-police-get-an-earful-from-apex-court_1431201