Sameer Thakur, 21, still hasn’t come to terms with the events leading up to the death of his father Jeevan Thakur on December 4, 2025. Jeevan, 49, a former janpad chairperson of Charama panchayat, died in a government hospital in Raipur, just two days after he was shifted to the Central Jail in the State Capital from a jail in Kanker, nearly 150 kilometres away. Jeevan had been lodged as an undertrial, accused of forging documents for a forest lease. In three weeks, he would have turned 50.

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His death — one of the 66 custodial deaths in Chhattisgarh’s prisons between January 2025 and January 2026 — had since prompted street protests across the Bastar area, where Kanker is located. The protesters said that the tribal leader, who was an office bearer of the Sarva Adivasi Samaj, an umbrella organisation for tribal communities in the State, had been tortured.

The matter was hotly debated in Chhattisgarh’s Legislative Assembly during the Budget session, with the government giving out the figures for the deaths.

Sameer has faced many blows over the past 5 months. He alleges that the Kanker jail authorities denied his heavily diabetic father proper medical care since his arrest on October 12 last year. His older brother Neeraj Thakur as well as their maternal uncle Sopsingh Thakur, had been arrested in the same case. Neeraj, too, 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 extent that he was unable even to walk to the meeting barrack. We requested the jail authorities to address the case on an urgent basis, but were told that he was doing alright,” says Sameer.  

He adds that on December 3, they learnt that Jeevan had been moved to Raipur for better treatment. The next day Sameer went to the Kanker jail to ask about his father’s whereabouts. “There I was told by the jail staff that my father had been moved to a government hospital in Raipur. I confronted them about why we were not told about it officially earlier,” he says, adding that his brother, who was in the same jail, was also not informed about the shift. “We established contact with Raipur’s Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital with the help of the Kanker MLA. Only then did we learn that he had died that morning. For hours after his death, there was not even an attempt to communicate,” he says.  

Neeraj later told the media that his father’s death and the treatment he himself had received in prison had caused him tremendous stress. In the jail transfer order, a copy of which the family allegedly received only after Jeevan’s death, “the hospitalization doesn’t find a mention”. 

Assembly answers

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

In response, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who holds the home portfolio in Chhattisgarh’s BJP government, told the Assembly that 66 prisoners had died in custody in that period. He added that in accordance with the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission, judicial magistrate inquiry proceedings had been completed in 18 cases, with 48 cases pending.

Baghel pointed out that the reply had not included the names of the deceased, to which Sharma replied that he would make the list available. Baghel then brought up the specific case of Jeevan, claiming that he had been framed. Sharma said Jeevan had been transferred to Raipur Jail by court order due to his “behaviour and other issues”. He strongly refuted all allegations of Jeevan being framed and said that an investigation report on the case had been filed. “Based on that report, there’s complete evidence against the accused of forging documents, forest rights certificates, and more. The case was filed based on that evidence,” he told the Assembly. 

Baghel spoke to the concerns voiced by the Thakur family before and after his death: “Since he suffered from diabetes, he wasn’t getting timely medication. There were numerous complaints against the jail superintendent, who denied him access to medical treatment, and refused to take him to the hospital despite the doctor’s advice. His condition worsened.”

He went on to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the tribal community, to which Thakur belongs, complained about this, even staging a road blockade across Bastar, and demanding an investigation by a Legislative Assembly Committee. “Did your department conduct an investigation based on the community’s demands? If an investigation was conducted, what was found? Who was found guilty, and what action was taken? If not, why?” he said. 

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Overfull jails

Another reply by the government on the same day revealed that at least 33 of the prisoners who died during this year-long period were those who were shifted from one jail to another.

The data offered in the Assembly shows that in 19 of the 33 cases, including that of Jeevan, the post mortem report of the death or judicial magistrate inquiry report were not available. Of the remaining 14, reasons were varied, from cardio-respiratory failure and chronic kidney disease to septicaemia. In most of these cases, the inmate was being shifted from a smaller town to a nearby bigger city such as Raipur or Bilaspur for better treatment.  

During the debate, the Deputy Chief Minister further revealed the numbers of custodial deaths in prisons in the previous few years were: 71 in 2021, a rise to 90 in 2022, a drop to 57 in 2023, and 67 deaths in 2024.

New Delhi-based Suhas Kumar Chakma, the Director of the Rights & Risks Analysis Group think-tank, says that while the reasons behind deaths in India’s jails vary, it all boils down to overcrowding.  

“It is difficult to generalise the deaths that happen in prison. There could be many factors. It could be old age, denial of medical facilities, improper treatment or torture, particularly on people arrested in insurgency cases,” he says. Chakma’s organisation conducts risk analysis to prevent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Degree Prasad Chouhan, a social activist based in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, claims that despite the formation of release committees by the government, the jails in the State are overcrowded. “This indicates a complete and insensitive attitude of a democratic and constitutional state towards human rights in prisons,” he says. 

In February 2024, the Deputy Chief Minister had said in the Assembly that over 18,000 inmates were lodged in Chhattisgarh’s jails against a sanctioned capacity of 14,383: up to 126% of the existing capacity then. 

Biases and labels  

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

His death was also followed by protests by his family, who claimed that he was innocent and was being framed and mentally tortured while in prison. His brother, Kammo, says their mother has taken ill after Sunil’s demise and is in hospital. 

Protesters at the time of Sunil’s death had also claimed that he was being targeted by the authorities because he was from the Gada community, a backward caste. Chouhan calls for a closer examination of data to look at how many people on the list of those who died in jail custody are from historically marginalised communities. He says such deaths “must be seen in a social, historical, and political context”. He gives the example of labelling marginalized communities as criminals.

shubhomoy.s@thehindu.co.in