Open letter to the Honorable Prime Minister of India to Bring Justice for Richard Loitam
- Date : April 29, 2012 -

Pix Courtesy of FB group for Richard

To,
The Honorable Prime Minister
South Block, Raisina Hill,
New Delhi,
India-110011.

Subject: Initiate an impartial, thorough enquiry, and impart justice to Loitam Richard and his family.

We are writing for your kind attention towards the recent tragic death of Loitam Richard.

Richard was 19 years old, a first-year student from Manipur, who was pursuing Architecture Engineering at Archarya NRV School of Architecture, Bangalore.

We wish to share our shock and serious concerns over the incident of brutal assault which led to his tragic death. Many national news dailies initially reported an incident of confrontation after the deceased switched the television channel while hostel inmates were watching the Indian Premier League match. However, Richard’s Parents have repeatedly challenged the factuality of this reported incident, and we, along with his family share the concern of such misleading reporting which are not based on concrete evidence.

Police investigation has stated the possibility of a confrontation in which Richard was severely assaulted leading to the deceased succumbing to his injuries on the same night, the 17th of April, 2012.

There are strong evidences that the deceased suffered multiple assaults on his head and face. Photographic Images of the deceased Richard shows massive swelling and bleeding around his head, which have been substantiated by the preliminary post-mortem report which also indicated serious bleeding in his brain.

Witness to the assault states Richard had never retaliated but actually was pleading for the assault to end.

However, the hostel mates and the warden, who reside in the same building states that they did not have any suspicions of Richard having sustained serious injury until he was found the next day unresponsive and dead lying in a pool of blood in his bed.

We are appalled that the deceased’s parents were informed only at 3.30 pm on the 18th of April, many hours after the incident had happened and Richard had died.

We are very much concerned with Archarya NRV School of Architecture and the reporting by some news dailies who we believe have attempted to cover up and rush to conclusion by shamefully linking Richard’s death to drug abuse, and an injury sustained during a road traffic accident which the doctor had examined and discharged as minor injury a few days before.

We believe that the Archarya NRV School of Architecture have not been forthcoming in investigating the crime along with the Karnataka Police who have stated that it could be an accidental death.

We, the signatories are obliged to write to you as we believe there is a lack of co-operation, fair, thorough investigation and reporting of the tragic incident.

We request you to please exercise the power and responsibility bestowed upon you by the constitution and initiate a transparent ‘thorough’ enquiry into this unfortunate incident and questionable events. We would urge upon you to investigate for possible ‘aggravating’ issues that could have exaggerated the violent assault leading to the death.

We believe only such a fair investigation carried out with the utmost respect to the bereaved family can only impart that justice that Richard and his family deserves.

We strongly believe such justice would create a sense of fair governance in the country where its citizen regardless of their race and ethnicity feel secured, protected and thereby enhance and consolidate their trust in the institutions of the country.

Loitam Richard in the last few days has inspired and endowed on us a ‘beautiful platform’ where thousands of citizens of India and well wishers from other countries have come together, with an aim for fair justice to prevail and promote harmony in the country.

We reiterate and request you to exercise full authority and responsibility, bring justice and let our vision be realised with Richard leaving a legacy for the nation.

Yours sincerely,
Justice for Loitam Richard
Website: http://www.Justice4Richard.org
Email: JusticeForLoitamRichard(at)gmail(dot)com