The Delhi Police on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that CCTV cameras at the Jyoti Nagar police station – where a person named Faizan was allegedly detained during last year’s communal violence in the city, who died after his release – were not working due to technical reasons, the Hindustan Times reported.

A video shot on February 24 last year, showed police personnel beating up Faizan (23), and four others, while ordering them to sing the national anthem and chant “Vande Mataram”. Faizan was then allegedly kept detained at the Jyoti Nagar police station. He died on February 26, two days after the attack and soon after his release.

Faizan’s mother, Kismatun, had filed a plea in the court seeking a Special Investigation Team inquiry into the death, according to the Hindustan Times. In her plea, Kismatun alleged that police had illegally detained Faizan and denied him healthcare, due to which he succumbed to his injuries. The court had then asked the police to file an affidavit with information from the CCTV cameras functioning at the time of the incident.

In its response on Monday, the police said that CCTV cameras at the police station were not working on February 24 and March 4, reported The Indian Express.

“During investigation, it came on record that on the date and time of incident – that is, on 24.02.2020 – CCTV cameras of police station Jyoti Nagar were not working due to some technical fault,” the police said, in its reply. “This fault had been lodged in the daily diary register.”

The police also included a service report from a private firm, in which an engineer corroborated that the cameras were not working and that “no tampering was noticed” by him when he resolved the fault, The Indian Express reported.

Last month, the police had informed the court that they were still trying to ascertain the identity of the personnel seen in the video and only one policeman had been “pinpointed on probable basis”, according to The Indian Express.