Taking into account the materials available on record that said the suspended Sattankulam policemen - Murugan, Muthuraj and Thomas Francis - had played an active role in the custodial torture of trader P. Jayaraj and his son J. Benicks leading to their deaths, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed their bail petitions.
Justice V. Bharathidasan observed that the statements of the witnesses reveal that the father-son duo were asked to clean the blood that had oozed from their wounds and scattered on the floor of the police station, with their own vests. The torture continued throughout the night, the court said.
The policemen also managed to obtain a certificate from the doctor as ‘both of them were fit for remand.’ Thereafter, they were produced before the Judicial Magistrate, Sattankulam, who remanded them in judicial custody.
The postmortem reports also clearly reveal that both of them died due to complications of blunt injuries sustained by them. Two women Head Constables working in the same police station were eyewitnesses to the occurrence and one of them has given a statement before the Judicial Magistrate concerned, the judge said.
Further, the court observed that the CBI investigation had revealed that the accused were involved in registering a false complaint against the traders and the suspended Inspector of Police Sridhar had instigated the accused policemen to teach them a lesson on ‘how to behave with police.’
The judge said that the materials available on record prima facie disclose that the petitioners have committed the offence. That apart, it is a case of custodial death, in which two innocent persons have lost their precious lives. Furthermore, the petitioners are police personnel and there is reasonable apprehension that witnesses can be influenced. Considering the circumstances involved and the gravity of the offence, the court said that it was not inclined to grant bail to the petitioners and dismissed their petitions.
Published - October 01, 2020 09:29 pm IST
