Chennai : The Madras High Court on Monday ordered the Revenue Dept to take over Tuthukudy’s Sathakulam police station, the alleged scene of crime where custodial torture killed an elderly man and his 32-year-old 10 days back. The ruling comes after cops at the station were un-cooperative toward the ongoing judicial probe, launched after huge public outcry over the incident.
One 20th of June, a police patrol team rounded up two shopkeepers, a father-son duo - Jeyaraj (62) and Bennix, for being late with shop closure in violation of state rule. The two were taken to Sathakulam police station and allegedly tortured - a practice the Tamil Nadu police is historically notorious for. Post the violence, haemorrhage never ceased for the two men and the two continued to bleed from their injuries till each died at the hospital two days later, in a gap of few hours from one another’s death.
In typical fashion, FIRs were filed without murder charges and the station officer was transferred to another location while 2 others were sent on suspension. However, protests and demonstrations catapulted the case to national headlines prompting the High Court to look up the case. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu govt has reportedly decided to hand the case over to CBI.
Incidentally, there are now reports emerging of yet another custodial death that took place at the same police station a fortnight before Jeyraj-Bennix deaths, also allegedly from torture at hands of the policemen there.
