The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has accused Police Surgeon Mahendra Chand of ignoring the abuse of a teen who was tortured while in custody and yesterday called for him to be relieved of duties in the police force and the prison service.
Chand, who treated the teen while he was in custody at the Leonora Police Station, dismissed the GHRA’s charges as “opinions” and questioned its authority to judge him. “If they want to cast aspersions on me, that is their business,” he told Stabroek News, adding that a complaint could be lodged with the Guyana Medical Council. “I am working for humanity everyday. Who is the GHRA to judge me?” he declared.
Saying that Chand’s failure to act constituted a dereliction of duty and could be considered passive complicity with torture, the GHRA called on the Medical Council to investigate whether his “gross breach of medical ethics” and “gross incompetence” displayed in the incident warrant serious disciplinary action.
The teen, a suspect in the murder of former Region Three Vice-Chairman Ramenauth Bisram, remains under police watch at the Georgetown Public Hospital while concerns continue to be raised about the method of interrogation the police used.
In an earlier interview with Kaieteur News, the GHRA said, Chand reported that that the teen was brought from the lock-ups with his head concealed. Because of this, he was quoted as saying, he thought that he was just a prisoner in a domestic matter who was brought in with injuries and that the police were trying to conceal his identity.
Chand in the article also denied knowing who he was treating and said too that he did not know that the police had anything to do with the prisoner’s injuries. Chand, according to the GHRA, also said he was not aware that he was treating a juvenile and that only after he saw the shocking news item in the Kaieteur News did he realise he had treated a torture victim.
The interview, the GHRA said in a statement yesterday, revealed a callous, indifference beyond belief. “The manner in which he [Mahendra Chand] conducted himself should lead to his immediately being relieved of his post in the Guyana Police Force … and the Guyana Prison Service,” it said.
Further, the human rights body stated that its independent investigations confirmed that during the examination the juvenile’s head was covered by a cloth bag with a string to tighten the neck. It said too that Chand never asked the juvenile his name, age or what had caused the burns and scars and neither did he speak to him at all. It noted that the only words the victim overheard the doctor saying was “This person need to go to hospital” and it added that there was no response from the police but an ointment was later handed to the teen who was advised to rub it on himself since the doctor had left it.
In this regard, the GHRA said the interview suggested that it is Chand’s normal practice to remain as ignorant as possible of what he is involved with. “Unfortunately silence in this case really does suggest consent,” it added, saying it puts him “morally” in the dock with other members of the force who bear varying degrees of responsibility for what occurred in Leonora police station or its “cover-up”.
“Any claim that Dr Chand was innocently rather than determinedly ignorant of what he was involved with is challenged by his apparent failure to ask even the most basic questions,” it emphasised, adding that everything about the interview smacks of a business-as-usual approach in which Chand hears no evil, sees no evil and says nothing. “When the official representative to the police force is not outraged by such treatment why should police ranks act differently?” it further questioned.
But Chand yesterday questioned the GHRA’s right to judge him. He stated that he was called by the police while he was off duty. “I made the sacrifice to go and see the patient,” he explained, adding it was about 6 pm when he was contacted. Questioned as to why he did not take the patient’s details, he said that he does not question the police work, further stating that there was no stationery or anything around where he could have recorded the information. “I am restricted to my work. A patient was produced to me and I did what I could have done in the situation,” he declared.
He declined to comment further.
Meanwhile, the GHRA pointed to Principle #2 of the Medical Principles applicable to persons in detention approved by the UN General Assembly, which states that it is a gross contravention of medical ethics, as well as offence under applicable international instruments for health personnel, particularly physicians to engage actively or passively in acts which constitute participation in, complicity in, incitement to or attempts to commit torture or other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Sacrifice
The GHRA also reiterated its call for appropriate disciplinary action to be taken against all officers to the highest levels of the police force who participated in or attempted to cover–up, downplay or minimize the brutality of the minor. It felt too that an internal enquiry ordered by the president is “another example of the government protecting those who torture.” It questioned how subordinates could objectively investigate the action of the commissioner of police, which it said is a legitimate part of the enquiry, as well as recommend appropriate disciplinary action.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) in a statement yesterday denounced the treatment of the boy while adding it is depending on government through the Ministry of Home Affairs and the police hierarchy along with independent panels of investigation to unearth the truth of the torture claims and to deal with the perpetrators.
FITUG pointed to other obvious implications of torture or alleged brutality by the police to obtain confessions, noting that they would be thrown out of the courts. “Even guilty parties who plead torture and phony confessions will walk from courts quite free,” it said, “Also, the entire force will bear the stain of credibility along with hostility from a society whose cooperation it needs.”
FITUG also condemned what it dubbed the “terroristic activities” of an identified gang earlier in the week which resulted in fires set at the High Court, the Richard Ishmael Secondary School and the shooting up of the Brickdam Police station and the East Ruimveldt Outpost. “When murder and mayhem is visited upon the poor working class persons on our highway in our police station and workplaces such as schools and law courts, who are the ultimate victims?” it queried.
