Chennai: In a significant order, the Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Monday sentenced nine Tamil Nadu policemen to death in a 2020 custodial killing case.
All nine accused in the headline-grabbing Sathankulam case, involving the father-son duo of Jayaraj and Benicks, received similar death sentences.
The nine policemen are — Inspector Sridhar, Sub-Inspectors Balakrishnan and Raghu Ganesh, and constables Murugan, Samadurai, Muthuraja, Chelladurai, Thomas Francis and Veilumuthu.
Jayaraj and his son Benniks were allegedly tortured brutally in custody, leading to their demise, in Tuticorin district. The incident had sparked nationwide outrage, raising serious questions on custodial violence in India.
On June 19, 2020, Jayaraj and Benicks, who ran a mobile shop, were arrested around 7.30 pm for allegedly keeping their shop open beyond permitted hours during COVID-19 lockdown — a claim found to be false later. The duo was taken to Sathankulam police station and then remanded to judicial custody.
They both died a few days later.
The court observed this was a “case of abuse of authority”, saying there are many honest police officers in Tamil Nadu and that the ruling will “not instil fear among police.”
“Father and son stripped, ruthlessly assaulted… Heart shudders reading about it,” the Madurai bench said, terming the the brutal custodial torture and subsequent death of traders as a “rarest of rare” case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over the probe from the Tamil Nadu’s CB-CID following directions from the Madras High Court, arrested nine policemen, and slapped murder charges against the accused.
The CBI had pressed for maximum penalty of death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
