MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday sought the report on the inquiry conducted by Thoothukudi judicial magistrate into the death of a 24-year-old man, N Arunachalam, a few days after his arrest in an illegal liquor sale case last month.
A bench of justices CV Karthikeyan and R Sakthivel gave the direction on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the state co-ordinator of the fishermen wing of Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) Theeran Thirumurugan, alias G Thirumurugan, seeking CBI investigation into the youth’s death on charges that he died due to “custodial torture”.
The Thoothukudi South Police had arrested Arunachalam on July 17 for alleged involvement in illegal sale of liquor. During inquiry, he was brutally beaten up by the police and was admitted in a hospital, Thirumurugan alleged, adding that a video of Arunachalam’s statement about the police torture was also circulated on social media.
Arunachalam died at the hospital on July 23, he added. He sought adequate compensation and government employment to the victim’s family as well as the transfer of the investigation to the CBI.
However, the government counsel denied the allegations and said the police already circulated the CCTV footage recorded in the station, showing Arunachalam fainting inside the station lockup.
As per the postmortem report, the cause of death was due to head injury by blunt force and there were no other external injuries on the body, he added. He criticised the petitioner for filing PIL without verifying the facts.
Since the Judicial Magistrate III of Thoothukudi was already conducting a statutory inquiry in the matter under BNSS Section 196, the judges sought the magistrate’s report to be furnished to the court and adjourned the case to September 2.