TIRUNELVELI: State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) member V Kannadasan passed an order on Monday, recommending that the state government pay Rs 3 lakh compensation within one month to the father of an 18-year-old youth, who was murdered while being transported to Thoothukudi by two police personnel in 2011.
The victim's father, R Ramasamy, had filed a case against then Nalattinpudur special sub-inspector A Arumuga Nainar and head constable M Murugan for negligence.
According to the SHRC order, one S Krishnamoorthy from Thoothukudi filed a complaint with the Nalattinpudur police in Thoothukudi district against the victim -- R Sathishkumar from Avinashipalayam in Tiruppur district -- allegedly after the complainant's wife, along with her child, left him and started living with the youth.
In April 2011, Nainar and Murugan took Krishnamoorthy with them to Avinashipalayam, on an SUV arranged by the complainant. At the Avinashipalayam police station, the two personnel conducted an inquiry with Sathishkumar, Ramasamy, and Krishnamoorthy's wife.
As the complainant's wife refused to go with him, the two policemen took the youth, Krishnamoorthy, his wife, and the child in the same SUV to Thoothukudi. In the Kallikudi police station limits, Krishnamoorthy, who had a hidden knife, slit the throat of the youth.
Later that night, Ramasamy was informed that his son was admitted to the government hospital in Virudhunagar after the vehicle allegedly met with an accident, but the youth had already been declared dead by the doctors.
Nainar and Murugan filed a complaint against Krishnamoorthy at the Kallikudi police station, and the latter was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by an Additional Sessions Court in Madurai in 2018.
Meanwhile, Nainar and Murugan were suspended in a departmental inquiry, and their three-year increment was cut for their negligence that led to the murder of the youth. Murugan is now retired.