THOOTHUKUDI: The mother of a 28-year-old man who died days after allegedly being tortured in police custody, says she did not seek a postmortem to be conducted on her son’s body fearing the police, though there were medical reports indicating that he had suffered severe head injuries.
S Mahendran, the deceased, was allegedly tortured by sub inspector Raghu Ganesh, who is now an accused in the custodial torture and murder of father-son duo Jeyaraj and Beniks in Sathankulam.
S Sudalai Vadivu (65) says her son was picked up by Raghu on May 23, in connection with the murder of a panchayat ward member on May 18.
A case had been registered against 18 people, including Mahendran’s brother S Durai.
“Although Mahendran’s name was not in the case, he was picked up by the officer, thereby making it an illegal detention,” allege village residents.
“The idea was to use Mahendran as a bait to make Durai surrender.” Mahendran was released on the very next day of being picked up, after Durai surrendered. But, he had allegedly been beaten black and blue by then.
Sudalai Vadivu recalls that Mahendran was unable to move his right side limbs, and suffered severe headaches.
He rested for a few days and resumed work as construction labourer on June 10. He fainted at the workplace, and was admitted to the Thoothukudi GH.
An MRI scan was done on June 12, and Express has accessed the medical report. It says Mahendran suffered tissue damage to his brain -- an impression of acute infarct causing mass-effect over the left lateral ventricle and middle line shift of about 17 mm to the right side.
On the evening of June 13, Mahendran died. Despite the severe injuries, his body was handed over without an intimation for postmortem.
“He had suffered severe blows to his head and all over the body,” says a relative on condition of anonymity.
“We did not take it seriously when he kept complaining about headaches.” Another relative said the family did not insist on postmortem as Vadivu was worried about the consequences.
“I was worried it would put my son Durai at great risk,” she says.
“Durai has three daughters.” Durai’s wife and kids have moved to her parent’s home. With one son dead and another in jail, Vadivu, whose husband died a decade ago, is all alone now.
Sathankulam case: Constable arrested
The fifth accused in the case of custodial torture and murder of father-son duo S Jeyaraj and J Beniks in Sathankulam, has been arrested after a three-day-long search.
District SP S Jeyakumar confirmed the arrest of Muthuraj. Sources say he was hiding in a remote village, Poosanur, near Kulathur. He has been handed over to the CB-CID.
Meanwhile, whistle blower cop’s statements were recorded by judicial magistrate S Hema. Sleuths have recovered the deleted CCTV footage from hard-disks, claimed CB-CID IG K Shankar.
He added that the sleuths have gathered new visuals as well, and assured swift action.