CHENNAI/TIRUNELVELI: Five people who had alleged custodial torture by suspended Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Balveer Singh appeared before the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in Chennai on Friday and submitted their statements.
The SHRC took a suo motu case on Tuesday as around 10 people in the Ambasamudram police division had alleged that the ASP pulled out their teeth and crushed the testicles of two of them when they were in police custody.
The victims who appeared before SP S Maheswaran and DSP M Sundaresan, investigation division of SHRC, are Subash, Chellappa, Esakkimuthu, Mariappan and Vetha Narayanan, who were allegedly tortured in Kallidaikurichi, Ambasamudram and Vikramasingapuram police stations. Nethaji Subash Sena president and advocate Maharajan accompanied them.
Speaking to media persons, Maharajan said the victims had named many police personnel including Bogan, Rajkumar, Murugesan, Esakki, Saddam, Bashir and Ramalingam, who were allegedly involved in the custodial torture. "While Balveer Singh was suspended, the government did not take any action against these police personnel and now they are trying to force the victims to change their statements," he added.
Stating that the SHRC inquiry was satisfactory, Maharajan further alleged that the sub-divisional magistrate-cum-sub collector MD Shabbir Alam refused to record statements of these five people in Cheranmahadevi while he received the statement of Surya, who did a u-turn and said he lost his teeth in a fall.
"Alam was ordered by the district collector K P Karthikeyan to conduct an inquiry with the three persons named in a single FIR registered in Kallidaikurichi police station. However, he collected the statement of Surya, who is not named in the particular FIR," he added. Maharajan also accused the police personnel of giving the case a caste colour.
"We have collected details of 13 victims who belong to Nadar, Paraiyar, Thevar, Asari and Chettiar castes. The police made Surya stay in a lodge and convinced him by threatening to register a case against him. Some people attempted to convince these five victims also. Since they stood firm, they are circulating CCTV footage and are framing them as rowdies," he alleged, adding that he will soon approach the High Court or Supreme Court seeking a CBI inquiry into the case. Meanwhile, Supreme Court lawyer Ashish Goel filed a complaint with National Human Rights Commission. In Cheranmahadevi, Vengatesh, one of the alleged custodial torture victims, appeared before Alam for a second time.