CHENNAI: According to the prosecution, the trigger for the Sathankulam crime was Jayaraj’s rant to other shop owners and workers in the area against the cops who had used harsh words to enforce COVID restrictions on the night of June 18, 2020.
Jayaraj had said that the policemen deserve to be beaten up, which a constable in civil clothes overheard and shared with his colleagues the next day.
On the night of June 19, a team comprising Inspector Sridhar, Sub Inspector Balakrishnan, Constable Muthuraja picked up Jayaraj.
“It does not matter even if you die. They will probably throw me in jail but I’ll come out even if I have to pledge my property to do so,” Balakrishnan was heard telling Benicks, as he brutally assaulted him with his lathi. This was recorded as a witness statement by Beulah Selvakumar, station writer at Sathankulam police station, who was on duty when the duo were assaulted in the station.
It does not matter even if you die. They will probably throw me in jail but I’ll come out even if I have to pledge my property to do soSub Inspector Balakrishnan telling Benicks while assaulting him with lathi
According to Beulah’s statement, Balakrishnan made Jayaraj stand between the lock-up room and staircase and assaulted him with a lathi, saying, “You think you’re a big rowdy in Sathankulam? You said you’d assault the police. Now beat them!”
While Jayaraj was being beaten, Benicks entered the station and asked why his father was brought there and why he was being beaten. Balakrishnan told Muthuraja to tell Benicks to stay outside and that he would be called later, but Benicks refused and pushed Muthuraja by grabbing his uniform.
When Balakrishnan went to assault Benicks and lost balance and fell, Inspector Sridhar came out of his room shouting, “He pushed a policeman! Are you all just standing there?”
“Balu, I could not hear their screams. Are you guys not beating them?” was Sridhar’s clarion call to his subordinates at frequent intervals, egging them to assault the father-son duo more.
Balakrishnan made Jayaraj and Benicks remove their clothes and stand between the lock-up and the staircase. He then began assaulting them on their backs as constables Murugan, Samadurai, Veilumuthu, and Selladurai held their hands.
While Sridhar did not assault either of the victims, he was found to have instigated the assault, according to the prosecution. He was named the prime accused by the CBI.
Citing two similar cases involving the same officers, the prosecution submitted to the court that Sridharhad a pattern of inflicting such injuries and torturing detainees.
While Inspector Sridhar did not assault either of the victims, he was found to have instigated the assault, according to the prosecution. He was named the prime accused by the CBI
“Are you not hitting him because he’s from your caste?” Balakrishnan wondered when his co-accused, constable Thomas Francis, refused to beat Jayaraj and Benicks.
The SI then relented and made Thomas hold their limbs, as he continued with his assault spree, according to the report submitted by Judicial Magistrate MS Bharathidasan, Kovilpatti.
Balakrishnan ordered Muthuraja to buy coconut oil packets, which were given to Jayaraj and Benicks to apply on their wounds. The beatings reportedly continued from 8.30 pm on June 19, 2020, to 1.30 am on June 20.
Benicks was stripped and beaten until he bled. Policewomen Beula and Revathy corroborated these events to the magistrate.
The investigation also revealed that bloodstains in the police station were cleaned. Benicks was made to wipe the blood on the floor using his own clothes. Sridhar was found to have instigated the assault on Jayaraj and Benicks, while Francis stood guard at the entrance to prevent anyone from entering.
Rajasingh, a fellow inmate with Benicks and Jayaraj at the Kovilpatti sub-jail, was examined as a prosecution witness.
He said that both of them were unable to walk and blood was continuously oozing from their backside. The father-son duo shared their ordeal with him.
Rajasingh said that in the dining area where they were sitting, there were many bloodstains. He saw their injuries and told them that a doctor would come the next day to treat them. He also showed them the injuries on his rear-end and told them that he too had been beaten in the same way by SIs Balakrishnan and Raguganesh, under the instigation of Inspector Sridhar.
According to Rajasingh, he was picked up by men in civil clothes and taken to Sathankulam police station for interrogation for a murder case. According to him, Sridhar told his subordinates, “These people are not telling anything about the case. Make them lie face down on the table and beat them.”
While they were being beaten, Sridhar kept saying, “Keep beating them until the sound reaches upstairs.”
After Jayaraj and Benicks died, the Judicial Magistrate from Kovilpatti came to the sub-jail to conduct an inquiry and took Rajasingh’s statements too.
Among the prosecution’s witnesses was Velmurugan, a man with speech and hearing disability, who was engaged by an Inspector to clean the blood stains in the station. His testimony was interpreted by Subramanian, a teacher at the Nallayan School for Hearing Impaired in Thoothukudi.
Subramanian translated Velmurugan’s statements during the CBI inquiry. Velmurugan wrote and showed the date June 20, 2020, indicating that he went to the police station that morning to clean.
He stated that the officer on duty instructed him to clean all areas, including the tables and stains on the walls, which emitted a foul smell. After wiping the stains, he was told to spray liquid to remove the odour. He cleaned everything, took a cloth and a stick, and after finishing, he was given some money to buy food and sent away.
When asked what he meant by “stains”, Velmurugan made a circular motion with his left hand. The interpreter explained before the court that the gesture indicated “bloodstains”.
He further stated that on June 20, 2020, a policeman instructed him to wash and clean all the dried blood wherever he saw it in the police station. He was asked to clean the hall, walls, and bathroom, where there were bloodstains, and a bad odour.
The witness identified Inspector Sridhar, as the person who had instructed him to clean.
Here are some of the demands made by the police to cover-up their acts. When the victims’ friends, David and Desinguraja, had gone to the police station on the night of detention, they could hear the screams from inside, begging for forgiveness. While they waited, one of the policemen told them to bring a lungi to change the bloodstained clothes.
Desinguraja went to the victims’ house and bought some clothes, but since they were light-coloured, the police asked for dark-coloured ones. He then bought dark-coloured clothes and gave them to the police.
Police also asked the victims’ friends to arrange for a car to take them to court. In the car, one policeman sat in front, and Benicks, his father, and another policeman sat in the back. Since the victims had blood oozing out of their injuries from their rear-end, the cop took a bedsheet from the bag and spread it on the back seat of the car for them to sit on. After their deaths, the bedsheet with dried blood was handed over to the advocates.
“We got the fresh piece (victims), we’re getting trained by beating them,” one of the accused, Constable Murugan was heard saying, according to a witness statement by lawyer Manimaran who was at the police station trying to appeal to the cops to not assault the duo and let them go.
According to another prosecution witness, Ravishankar (Benick’s friend), he saw Jayaraj being pushed into the lock-up and Inspector Sridhar saying, “Only if we remand them will they learn a lesson.”
Another prosecution witness, Joseph, a relative of the victims, deposed before court that when he met the victims at the hospital, Jayaraj said he had been beaten more than 100 times, and his son had been beaten more than 250 times with a lathi and pipe.
With the 9 policemen found guilty by a trial court in the case, civic society members called for more focus on doctors at government hospitals who fail to record injuries in custodial torture cases.
Even one of the accused cops called for probing the role of doctors, magistrates and even the star witnesses – women constables, Revathi and Beulah.
The trial court, however, held a different view. “There is no evidence or testimony indicating that anyone else, apart from the accused police officers, had beaten or injured Jayaraj and Benicks,” the court held.
In this case, doctors failed to notice the full extent of injuries and the Judicial Magistrate also failed to observe them. However, these injuries had occurred before Jayaraj and Benicks were brought to the hospital or produced before the Judicial Magistrate.
At the time when these injuries were inflicted, doctors, sub-jail staff, and Judicial Magistrate were not present at the crime scene. Therefore, the negligence on their part may warrant administrative action but does not justify criminal prosecution.
With the 9 policemen found guilty by a trial court in the case, civic society members called for more focus on doctors at government hospitals who fail to record injuries in custodial torture cases
Inspector Sridhar, the prime suspect in the case, defended himself saying that he was not present at Sathankulam police station and was not the officer-in-charge during that time.
He accused Sub Inspector Raguganesh of the crime, and claimed that the SI had not informed him about the FIR against Jayaraj and Benicks. He also claimed that Raguganesh had acted solely as the investigating officer and that he had illegally detained the duo at the station and sent them to judicial custody after concealing their injuries.
Sridhar further stated that the SI had acted arbitrarily without conducting a proper investigation, had not informed him about the registering the FIR, and hence, had no connection with the case.
However, his defence held no water as one of the star witnesses, Head Constable Revathi had deposed about his statements to the personnel.
According to Revathi’s deposition, on June 22, 2020, as she was leaving from work, she heard that Benicks had died. Inspector Sridhar had gathered all the cops in the station and said, “We must make it look like nothing happened in the station. It should appear as if they died in Kovilpatti sub-jail.”
After hearing of Benick’s death, they altered documents in the station – General Diary, Rough Duty Roster and case records – and rewrote statements with familiar names. Revathi also stated that Inspector Sridhar told Veyilumuthu and Thomas Francis to delete CCTV footage, which they did.
While delivering the verdict condemning the accused cops to death, the additional district judge, K Muthukumaran noted that this is not the first such case in Indian history, nor will it be the last.
“This is not a situation confined to India alone but one that exists in various parts of the world. A month before this incident, on May 25, 2020, the death of George Floyd in the US stands as a similar example. Ajith Kumar’s death in Sivaganga is another,” the judge noted and stated that this evil practice must not be allowed to spread among other police personnel.
“If a crime is committed in a moment of emotional impulse, it may be considered a mitigating factor,” Additional district judge K Muthukumaran began his reasoning while issuing his verdict. “However, in this case, Jayaraj was taken to the police station on June 18, 2020, merely because he had allegedly spoken disrespectfully of the police. He was beaten and tortured out of vengeance. When Benicks went to question the police about this, the accused, in a fit of rage, assaulted and tortured him as well.”
Sentencing the accused to life imprisonment would plant a dangerous notion among certain police officers that no one can do anything to them, that they can destroy evidence and escape punishment, and that even if they receive the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, they can somehow secure release after 14 years through remission or other means
The judge also observed that it had not been proven that Jayaraj and Benicks violated COVID-19 regulations. Based on the evidence presented, the case registered against them has been proven to be false. Therefore, Jayaraj’s detention at the Sathankulam police station was unlawful. In this context, Benicks questioning his father’s illegal detention cannot be considered a provocation,” he added. “The accused had ample opportunity to restrain themselves and control their emotions, yet they stripped both father and son in front of each other and brutally assaulted and tortured them. This act is completely contrary to human dignity.”
Government officials, within a government building, deliberately assaulted and caused the death of completely innocent detainees. There is no justification to say that life imprisonment would suffice. This court, therefore, concludes that this case falls within the category of the rarest of rare cases,” the court said and handed down the death sentence to the accused.Judge K Muthukumaran, First Additional District and Sessions Court, Madurai
He noted that at the time of the incident, Jayaraj and Benicks were unarmed. “The accused locked the doors to prevent them from escaping, tied their hands with ropes, and continued to beat and torture them. Both father and son died as a result of this brutality. Considering the nature of the crime, it clearly falls within the doctrine of the rarest of rare cases,” the judge stated, and added, “It may be argued that since the accused will not be able to serve in office after being sentenced to life imprisonment, they will have no opportunity to commit similar crimes again. Accepting such arguments would plant a dangerous notion among certain police officers, intoxicated by power that no one can do anything to them, that they can destroy evidence and escape punishment, and that even if they receive the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, they can somehow secure release after 14 years through remission or other means.”
S Sridhar (61) - Inspector
P Raghu Ganesh (50) - Sub-Inspector
K Balakrishnan (42) - Sub-Inspector
S Murugan (51) - Constable
A Samadurai (51) - Constable
M Muthuraja (36) - Constable
S Chelladurai (45) - Constable
X Thomas Francis (38) - Constable
S Veilumuthu (42) - Constable
SSI Pauldurai (56) died in 2020 and charges against him were abated