TIRUNELVELI: Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M Appavu raised suspicions of custodial torture in the death of a Tirunelveli-based 43-year-old worker at Ganj Basoda police station in Madhya Pradesh.
According to a petition submitted by Appavu to Tirunelveli collector, on Thursday, “Masanamuthu is survived by his wife and three children. Due to poverty, he had recently gone to Pune to work at an idly shop. He knew only Tamil, and decided to return to TN as he could not survive there after 20 days.
He bought a train ticket to Chennai but mistakenly boarded another train arriving at Ganj Basoda station. He was taken to a police station on suspicion, where he died allegedly after being tortured. His body has been kept at the postmortem ward of the Rajiv Gandhi GH in MP,” Appavu said.
In the petition, Masanamuthu’s son M Sujin alleged that his father was physically tortured and killed during the interrogation. “The Ganj Basoda police are responsible for my father’s death,” he claimed.
Speaking to media persons at the collectorate, Appavu insisted that the autopsy be conducted only after arranging for the procedure to be videographed. He hoped that CM Stalin will send officials to bring back Masanamuthu’s body to the state.