Chhattisgarh: Death behind bars – The Hindu

Sameer Thakur, 21, still hasn’t come to terms with the events that led to the death of his father, Jeevan Thakur, on December 4, 2025. Jeevan, 49, former janpad president of Charama panchayat, died at a government hospital in Raipur, just two days after he was transferred to the Central Jail in the State Capital from a prison in Kanker, about 150 kilometers away. Jeevan was arraigned on charges of forging documents for a forest lease. He would have turned 50 in three weeks.

Also Read | Are existing mechanisms effective in preventing violence in custody?

His death, one of 66 custodial deaths in Chhattisgarh jails between January 2025 and January 2026, had since led to street protests in Bastar district, where Kanker is located. Protesters said the tribal leader, an official of the Sarva Adivasi Samaj, an umbrella organization covering tribal communities in the state, was subjected to torture.

The issue was hotly debated in the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly during the Budget session and the government announced the figures on deaths.

Sameer has faced many blows in the last 5 months. He alleges that Kanker prison authorities have denied his father, who is severely diabetic, the necessary medical care since his arrest on October 12 last year. His elder brother Neeraj Thakur and maternal uncle Sopsingh Thakur were also arrested in the same case. Neeraj also died in January after his health deteriorated while out on bail.

“On December 1, my uncle (Sopsingh) told us that my father’s health had deteriorated to the point that he could not even walk to the assembly barracks. We asked the prison authorities to look into the case urgently, but we were told that his condition was stable,” says Sameer.

He adds that on December 3, they learned that Jeevan was shifted to Raipur for better treatment. The next day, Sameer went to Kanker prison to inquire about his father’s whereabouts. “There, the prison staff told me that my father had been transferred to a government hospital in Raipur. I confronted them about why this was not officially informed to us earlier,” he says, adding that his brother, who is also in the same prison, was not informed about the change. “With the help of Kanker MLA, we contacted Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital in Raipur. However, we learned that he had died that morning. Not even an attempt was made to contact him for hours after his death,” he says.

Neeraj later told the media that his father’s death and his treatment in prison caused him great stress. The prison transfer order, a copy of which the family allegedly received only after Jeevan’s death, “makes no mention of his hospitalisation”.

Assembly answers

Question Hour in the Chhattisgarh Assembly on February 26 began with the issue of deaths in custody. Former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress asked how many custodial deaths occurred in the state’s central and district jails between January 2025 and January 31, 2026. He also asked whether a judicial investigation had been completed in all these cases as per the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission.

In response, Chhattisgarh’s Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who holds the home portfolio in the BJP government, told the House that 66 prisoners had died in custody during that period. He added that judicial magistrate investigations have been completed in 18 cases as per the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission, while 48 cases are pending.

While Baghel stated that the names of the dead were not included in the response, Sharma said that he would announce the list. Baghel then brought up Jeevan’s special case and claimed that there was a conspiracy against him. Sharma said Jeevan was shifted to Raipur Jail on a court order due to his “behavior and other issues”. He strongly denied all allegations of conspiracy against Jeevan and said that an investigation report has been submitted in the case. “According to this report, there is full evidence against the accused for forging documents, forest rights certificates and more. The case has been filed based on this evidence,” he told Parliament.

Baghel addressed the concerns raised by the Thakur family before and after his death: “As he was a diabetic, he could not receive medication on time. There were many complaints against the prison warden, who denied him access to medical treatment and refused to take him to hospital despite the doctor’s advice. His condition deteriorated.”

He went on to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the tribal community to which Thakur belonged had complained in this regard, even imposing a road blockade in Bastar, and demanded an investigation by the Legislative Assembly Committee. “Did your ministry conduct an investigation in line with the demands of the society? If so, what was found? Who was found guilty, what actions were taken? If not, why?” he said.

Comment | Justice is not ‘teaching someone a lesson’

Prisons are overcrowded

In another response given by the government on the same day, it was revealed that at least 33 of the prisoners who died this year were those transferred from one prison to another.

Data presented in Parliament shows that in 19 of the 33 cases, including Jeevan’s, no post-mortem report or magistrate’s inquest report into the death was available. The causes of the remaining 14 diseases varied from cardiorespiratory failure and chronic kidney disease to septicemia. In most of these cases, the prisoner was shifted from a smaller town to a nearby larger city like Raipur or Bilaspur for better treatment.

During the debate, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the number of deaths in custody in prisons over the previous few years was as follows: 71 in 2021, rising to 90 in 2022, falling to 57 in 2023 and 67 deaths in 2024.

Suhas Kumar Chakma, director of the New Delhi-based Rights and Risks Analysis Group think tank, says that although the reasons behind deaths in Indian prisons vary, they are all due to overcrowding.

“It is difficult to generalize deaths that occur in prison. There can be many factors. It can be old age, lack of medical facilities, inappropriate treatment or torture, especially in people arrested in cases of riot,” he says. Chakma’s organization conducts risk analysis to prevent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Degree Prasad Chouhan, a social activist living in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, claims that despite release committees being formed by the government, prisons in the state are overcrowded. “This shows that the democratic and constitutional state has a complete and insensitive attitude towards human rights in prisons,” he says.

In February 2024, the Deputy Chief Minister had said in the Parliament that more than 18,000 inmates were kept in Chhattisgarh prisons, accounting for an approved capacity of 14,383, which was up to 126% of the then existing capacity.

Preconceptions and labels

Another custodial death during this period was that of 30-year-old Sunil Mahanand, who allegedly died by suicide in Raipur Central Jail on January 4, less than two months after he was lodged there. He was arrested in a harassment case registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act, 2012.

His family’s protests following his death also claimed that he was innocent and that he had been slandered and subjected to mental torture while in prison. His brother Kammo says that after Sunil’s death, their mother fell ill and was hospitalized.

Protesters at the time of Sunil’s death had also alleged that he was targeted by the authorities because he was from the Gada community, a backward caste. Chouhan is calling for a closer look at the data to look at how many people on the prison death-in-custody list are from historically marginalized communities. Such deaths, he says, “must be seen in a social, historical and political context.” He gives the example of marginalized communities being labeled as criminals.

shubhomoy.s@thehindu.co.in