While inside the cells one cannot possess any reading or writing material. It was forbidden. And later on, the guards would drag prisoners out tear their garments throw them into gunny bags and would be hauled off. They would empty bottles of lotion and throw away the empty bottles. According to established rules inside this complex of cells, 4 times every 24 hours, guards would enter the cells and check the inmates. On such occasions, the inmates will be beaten and tortured randomly. One of the worst torturers used to be a police guard named Aalim. |
In addition, when everyone is taken out of cells and tortured like this, the sergeant in charge is a man named Shahid Ali Manik . In jail he is known as “Appa”. From what he talks during his visits, I believe the police have killed people they have tortured. Whoever listened to him talking would very easily be convinced that Eevan is not the only one tortured and killed in jail by the them. He said that a man called Aiy balhey was beaten to death and buried in jail. And apart from this, he came up with what they had done to a considerable amount of inmates and, threatened to do the same with us. And during their monologues, inmates would be taken out of jail in handcuffs, ostensibly to determine good and bad prisoners! Those who are taken out in handcuffs will be secured to coconut palm trunks, with their arms encircling the tree trunk and cuffed from behind. These inmates tortured in this way included women and girls. One incident was when a girl said “ You Baldy “ to a police guard, 4 guards drag her outside, cuffed her to a coconut palm trunk and cut off her hair from the scalp. And every night a batch of inmates were taken out and run through military training exercises – in jail terms, the inmates were “ grounded and dragged “ . In this activity no consideration was given to the old, the young or the sick. Even children younger than 18 years were found detained in this cell made out of roofing sheets. Among them, a boy named Fairish from Henveiru Ward was heavily tortured. He was taken out, stripped naked, and inserted into a plastic water container/drum. Then he was rolled over like this all over the island. And again, he was also made to run naked in front of the cells, while guards whipped him with a rubber whip. Also A***d R****u (a diabetic patient) was cuffed to an iron ring, in front of the cells and was kept like this for 15 days. While he was kept cuffed to the ring, every hour he would be dragged to a toilet outside the warehouse and given a shower. This went on for 15 days. Furthermore, he was forced to run up and down, a length of 200 feet carrying huge tables mounted on his shoulder. They forced him to do this exercise from one morning till daylight the following day. |
In this fashion, torture was made an ordinary harmless activity that happened inside Maafushi jail. People thus have been beaten to death in this jail. When they shot prisoners from behind (20th September 2003) I was present in jail. I even witnessed the scene when, after the shooting incident inmates were man-handled, kept face down on the ground and guards jumped up and down and ran on the backs of those inmates. I saw them doing this. |
