Chilling custodial death sparks outrage in Tamil Nadu: 'Beaten to death for nothing'

Former chief minister of Tamil Nadu Edappadi K. Palaniswami pays respects to B. Ajith Kumar (PTI)

• CBI confirms Ajith Kumar died in custody; no evidence of theft found
• Police tortured Ajith Kumar based on false complaint; multiple officers charged
• Tamil Nadu ranks second in custodial deaths; torture remains widespread

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“So there was nothing. A person was beaten to death in a case where there was nothing,” Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court judge, Justice S. Srimathy’s chilling remark in the court on Wednesday is testament to how custodial death victims are often innocent of the crimes they are accused of. And, also testament to how violence-prone the police are, often acting without an FIR or any investigation, ready to torture anyone on mere suspicion.

Seven months ago, security guard of Bhadrakali Amman Temple in Madapuram in Sivaganga district, B Ajith Kumar, was beaten to death by police on a complaint by one JP Nikitha who had visited the temple, on June 27 last, with her mother and handed the car key to Ajith Kumar to park it. Nikitha claimed that she later found a bag of jewellery open and jewels missing. On her complaint against him, Ajith Kumar was taken to the police station for interrogation. He died during interrogation the next day.

The police said, as is their wont, that he died following seizures. But a postmortem report revealed that there were 44 injuries on his body. Subsequently, videos appeared of him being tortured and chilli powder and ganja were allegedly used during the torture. The state government handed over the case to CBI as the High Court ordered investigation into the custodial death.

On Wednesday, CBI confirmed in Justice Srimathy’s court that it was a case of custodial death and that there is no evidence of theft by Ajith Kumar. “So there was nothing?,” Justice Srimathy asked and the CBI said, “no”. The anguished judge wanted to know if Nikitha, whose lies were the cause of Ajith Kumar’s death, would be arrested. CBI replied that it would file a report in this regard. CBI closed the theft case against Ajith Kumar, whose mother B Malathi demanded the arrest of Nikitha.

On taking over the case CBI had named police constables Prabhu, Kannan, Sankara Manikandan, Raja, Anand and police driver Ramachandran as accused. Later, names of former Manamadurai DSP N Shanmugasundaram, who was suspended, former Thiruppuvanam Inspector P Ramesh Kumar, former Sub-Inspector Sivakumar and former Head Constable Ilayaraja were added in the chargesheet.

Nikitha (36) and her family were involved in a fraud case in 2011. Complaints were filed by two complainants claiming that they took a total of Rs 16 lakh promising government jobs citing their proximity to then Deputy Chief Minister’s assistant. They then changed their location. But when the complainants got through to them, the JP family threatened them with dire consequences. Given this family background of Nikitha, police should have investigated properly before subjecting Ajith Kumar to torture.

Tamil Nadu is a state where the rate of custodial deaths is high, second only to Gujarat. Irrespective of which party is in power, torture and violence is the predominant process in dealing with any accused, many of whom turned out to be innocent. Under the current DMK regime there have been 32 custodial deaths while during the previous AIADMK rule there were 40. The usual causes of death cited by police are seizures, snake bite, suicide and cardiac arrest. But autopsy of the victims’ bodies reveal a story of torture.In some cases the bodies are disposed of before a second autopsy or forced to cremate before any evidence could be gathered. Deaths in police custody are more in the southern districts.