The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court slammed the persistence of custodial violence on Wednesday, refusing bail to two Railway Protection Force officers linked to the death of a Gonda resident. Justice Manish Mathur delivered the verdict while dismissing criminal appeals filed by RPF sub-inspector Karan Singh Yadav and constable Amit Kumar Yadav. The judge’s language was blunt: the pandemic may have ended, but the "plague of custodial deaths" shows no sign of stopping.
The case stems from the alleged death of Sanjay Kumar Sonkar, a resident of Kinki village. Prosecutors claim that after six tins of mustard oil were stolen from a goods train near Motiganj station on September 28, 2025, RPF personnel investigated the theft. Sonkar’s name surfaced during this probe. The FIR alleges that on November 4, 2025, officers took him for questioning, returned him to his village at 4:30 pm, and then removed him again. By the next morning, his brother was told Sonkar’s body was at the mortuary.
Yadav and Kumar argued they were falsely implicated and pointed to the post-mortem report. The medical findings noted bruises on the upper thigh and abrasions on both knees, which their counsel argued were insufficient to cause death. The state, however, countered that the accused were uncooperative and that the allegations were grave. Mathur rejected the defense’s attempt to use the medical report to preemptively win the case.
"The burden of proof can and should ordinarily be on the police personnel to rebut the allegations levelled against them," Mathur wrote. He emphasized that the appellants must explain the circumstances of Sonkar’s death, a duty they had not yet met. The court ruled that whether the injuries were fatal or incidental would be decided during trial, based on full evidence, not at the bail stage.
The next step is the trial in the Special Court (SC/ST Act) in Gonda. The officers will have to stand before the judge to answer for the November 2025 incident, with the high court’s recent order serving as a clear signal that bail will not be granted lightly in cases involving allegations of police misconduct.