Custodial violence is a disturbingly common reality in India. Public sentiment, reflected in films, has come to normalise and even valourise police excesses—a slippery slope that can range from a few slaps to planned extrajudicial killings. Underpinning the brutality is the almost-unchecked power bestowed by the assumption that uniformed personnel are acting for the greater good. But absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is how the father-son duo of Jeyaraj and Beniks came to be killed by 10 policemen in Tamil Nadu’s Sathankulam in June 2020—about a month after the well-reported killing of George Floyd in the US.
Six years later, a trial court convicted and sentenced nine policemen in Sathankulam to death for torture and killing; a tenth cop died before the chargesheet was filed. The judgement, a rare case where uniformed personnel were held to account for custodial violence, comes less than a year after a temple guard was brutally beaten to death by police in Sivaganga district on the flimsy charge of theft. Between these two episodes of horror in Tamil Nadu are several other instances of alleged custodial torture and death—not only in Tamil Nadu, but across India. The government informed Parliament last month that custodial deaths increased from 140 in 2024-25 to 170 in 2025-26 (up to March 15).
Part of the corrupting power enjoyed by the police is the confidence of facing little or no consequence for their actions. In this case, it was facilitated by the dereliction of duty by other government servants—doctors and the magistrate. But notably, police constable S Revathy spoke up against her colleagues and appeared as a prosecution witness at grave personal risk.
The Sathankulam verdict, with references to Floyd’s death and other instances of custodial violence, invokes the death penalty as a deterrent to check police impunity. However, it is not the death sentence—which has no place in a system of reformative justice—but the certainty of punishment that is the true deterrent. Governments must ensure errant police are prosecuted for their crimes, without exception and regardless of the innocence or guilt of their victims. Alongside them, doctors, magistrates and other government workers, who facilitate police excesses by omission or commission, must also be held to account. Only the certainty of meaningful punishment will erode the absolute power enjoyed by those in khaki.