JOIN USRehabilitation centre staff beat 'violent' alcoholic to death
A 38-year-old alcoholic admitted to a rehabilitation centre was allegedly beaten to death by the staff after he became “violent and unruly.”
Faheem Shariff was chained and beaten with rods and PVC pipes at the rehab centre attached to Ashrafia Masjid in HBR Layout, East Bengaluru, on Tuesday. Police have booked the head of the centre and some members of the staff for murder.
Faheem was admitted to the centre by his family at 8.30 pm on August 26. “He was addicted to alcohol but was otherwise healthy. We admitted him to the rehab centre on the advice of a few elders at the mosque,” Faheem’s elder brother Waseem Shariff, a computer technician, told DH. “We had hoped he would become sober.”
Waseem said he had tried calling up Khalid, the head of the rehab centre, on Tuesday but couldn’t get through. Khalid responded around 8 pm, saying Faheem had fallen unconscious and that theywere taking him to the hospital.
Brothers shocked
Waseem and other brothers then rushed to the centre where they had the shock of their lives: Faheem’s cold, lifeless body was lying in the back seat of a car.
Initially, the family believed the centre’s claim that Faheem had died a natural death. They reconciled themselves to the fate and took the body to Darul Shifa in Govindpur and thence to their residence in Basavanagar.
Faheem’s brothers, however, suspected something fishy as he appeared to have died several hours ago. Nonetheless, they went ahead with his final rites but were shocked to see blood oozing out of his forehead. Relatives and neighbours soon gathered at the house, and they all went to the rehab centre. They confronted the in-charge, Inayat, and other staff.
The staff claimed that Faheem had become “violent and unruly”, forcing them to chain him and beat him with rods and PVC pipes. “They tied his hands and beat him as if he were a dog. His entire body had turned bluish,” Waseem said.
Brutally assaulted
Other staff and attendants confirmed to the family that Faheem had indeed been brutally assaulted.
The family then called the jurisdictional Hennur police who rushed to the spot and arrested Inayat. Khalid and a few others said to be involved in the assault are absconding. Police later shifted Faheem’s body to the BR Ambedkar Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem and registered a case of murder.
Faheem was one of the five sons of Mohammad Yaqoob. He was married and had two daughters, aged 3 and 6, his family said. Faheem was into real estate business but had stopped going to work for the last one-and-a-half years.