India: Man dies in police custody after MDMA arrest, officers suspended

Dear reader, We regret to report that the war on drugs has unnecessarily claimed another fatality, this time in South West India where a man was arrested for MDMA possession shortly before dying in police custody.

Several different Indian news outlets have reported that 30-year-old Thamir Jiffri was arrested in the early hours of August 1 in Tanur, a town of about 50,000 in Kerala, India. He was arrested with four others for drug possession and died of a drug overdose at around 4:30 a.m.

The problem is that the statements made by the police directly contradict the allegations made by the victim’s family and the autopsy. Jiffri’s family have publicly claimed that Thamir was not arrested on August 1 in Tanur, police have confirmed. The family have accused police of breaking into their home in nearby Chelari, some 20 minutes’ drive north-east, the night before, beating Thamir in front of them and arresting them.

A public outcry ensued after Jiffri’s death. The following is a statement from the Chairman of the Indian Union Muslim League, N. Samsudheen, a member of the 15th Legislative Assembly of Kerala:

“Jiffri was taken to police headquarters and subjected to third degree torture. The autopsy report revealed that 21 wounds were inflicted on his body. This alone is evidence of the type of torture he was subjected to. Although Jiffri was arrested from his place of residence in Chelari, police claimed he was arrested under the railway bridge in Tanur. Now it has also become known that he was anally sexually abused in police custody.”

Eight police officers were suspended after Jiffri’s death. Samsudheen has publicly called for the Malappuram Police Commissioner to be suspended as well.

“We raised the issue in the congregation. Unfortunately, the government has not yet taken adequate action against the SP. We suspect the possibility of SP involvement or knowledge of torture in detention. To allow for an unimpeded investigation by the CBI, we urge the removal of Malappuram SP,” Samsudheen said.

The aforementioned autopsy also revealed that two packets of a crystalline substance were found in Jiffri’s abdomen, although from my desk in California it has proved difficult to trace much more detail.

All of this information has been compiled from around 10 different articles in Indian/East Asian news outlets, almost none of which fully agree on all the details of this case. To this end, about half of them spell Thamir’s name “Tamir Jiffri” or “Tamir/Thamir Geoffrey”. I don’t know if that’s because it’s difficult to get accurate information in some parts of the world, or because online translators take certain automatically programmed liberties that can often lead to errors. It can be anything.

What I do know is that what appears to be a young man has been arrested either at his home or in a nearby town with some MDMA on him, a drug close to my heart. This young man was dead hours later and a post-mortem revealed he had suffered a beating from hell before he died. All police officers involved were suspended and Jiffri’s family and local officials have since called for action to be taken.

It’s also worth mentioning here that India has some extremely strict laws regarding drug possession and use. Possession of small amounts of drugs in India is punishable by six months imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Large amounts carry a prison sentence of 10 to 20 years, while common offenders face the death penalty. While that’s small compared to a country like Singapore, which executed 15 people for drug use last year, it’s still a chilling reality for anyone looking to eat or sell some molly in India.

Thamir Jiffri’s family, Kerala Police, Malappuram Police and all the journalists who wrote the articles I was referring to have not responded to my attempts to contact them. Nonetheless, only limited details of this terribly tragic situation have made its way from Kerala, India, to the west coast of America, where we will soon be paying exorbitant prices for a guy named Indica to give us two shots of MDMA from his silly little doctor’s office in Palo Alto. At the risk of becoming a little too editorial, we cannot leave stories like Thamir’s untold as we fight to end America’s drug war because they are being executed abroad, sent to labor camps, or allegedly headed for police stations be beaten to death.