The Supreme Court has said that it will directly supervise the investigation into the alleged custodial torture and death of 25-year-old Gade Sai Krishna by the Krishnalanka police in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Augustine George Masih and Sandeep Mehta were hearing a plea, on September 23, by YSR Congress Party MP Maddila Gurumoorthy seeking an investigation into the role of senior police officers in the alleged illegal detention and custodial killing of Sai Krishna and destruction of evidence in the case.
Gurumoorthy’s plea had challenged the Andhra Pradesh High Court order staying further proceedings on a private complaint filed by Gurumoorthy before a Vijayawada magistrate. Gurumoorthy had sought the lower court to conduct an inquiry into the role of senior police officers, including the Director General of Police (DGP) Harish Kumar Gupta, NTR district Police Commissioner SV Rajashekhara Babu, and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) K Manasa, in Sai Krishna’s alleged custodial death and the destruction of evidence in the case. The HC stayed the proceedings on August 13 after ACP Manasa challenged the magistrate court’s decision to record the statements of Gurumoorthy and other witnesses.
The Supreme Court bench has now stayed all related proceedings in Andhra Pradesh High Court. It also sought all records and details related to the case in a sealed cover by September 30, according to Deccan Chronicle.
The bench also reportedly expressed concern that Sai Krishna was never produced before a magistrate after being taken into custody, the delay in registering an FIR over his disappearance, the missing CCTV footage from the Krishnalanka police station, and the failure to trace his body.
YSRCP State General Secretary and former Additional Advocate General Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy said the Supreme Court’s intervention in the Sai Krishna custodial death case was a severe indictment of the functioning of the state police machinery.
Sai Krishna, a resident of Markapuram and a food-delivery worker with a record of multiple criminal cases, was picked up by the Krishnalanka police on May 6 and went missing after that. His mother, Gade Vijayalakshmi, later complained about his alleged wrongful confinement and death, following which a case was registered against Krishnalanka Circle Inspector SSVV Nagaraju, the main accused.
Nagaraju was arrested on June 23. The SIT has since arrested several other accused, including police personnel, a home guard, and a medical practitioner.
The Andhra Pradesh police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case has concluded that he died from injuries sustained during severe beatings by police personnel. In a remand report recently submitted after the arrest of Gulivindala Suresh, the fourth accused in the case, the SIT said that Sai Krishna was tortured by Nagaraju, head constable Ashok, and constable Nani on May 7. He was allegedly then moved, on Nagaraju’s instructions, to an abandoned building at Ranigari Thota, where he is believed to have died from severe injuries.
The report said that on the night of May 12, Nagaraju, Ashok, and Suresh wrapped Sai Krishna’s body in a blanket and took it to the Swargapuri crematorium in Vijayawada and burnt it there.