The body of 31-year-old Shemeer, who died after an alleged brutal assault by prison officers while a remand prisoner at a Covid quarantine facility on October 1, 2020, had over 40 injury marks indicating the brutality of violence. A Crime Branch special team arrested six prison officers but all of them were reinstated in service after they received bail.
For four days in June 2019, 49-year-old Rajkumar of Nedumkandam in Idukki district of Kerala suffered inhuman torture at the hands of police including ‘falanga’, a method of inflicting repeated blunt trauma on feet or palms. Nine police officers were chargesheeted by the CBI in the case but they couldn’t be dismissed from service as they moved the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) against the order.
An autopsy on the body of 26-year-old Varappuzha native Sreejith, who died allegedly due to custodial torture in April, 2018, had revealed that blunt trauma on abdomen could have been the cause of septicaemia resulting in multiple organ failure, which finally took his life. Ten police officers were suspended following his death but all of them were reinstated in December 2018.
Kin of victims of custodial torture in Kerala are fighting one of the hardest battles against state power as police personnel accused of brutal violence, that have at times led to death, get help from their 'benovolent' colleagues. From tampering with evidence and forging documents to delaying trial in cases to prolong the legal battle, influence wielded by police during departmental inquiries in cases of custodial violence often makes the probes farcical and the accused often get off the hook silently after a few months of suspension. Conviction by a court of law is often a time-consuming process, even when cases are investigated by external agencies like the CBI, and tests the patience of victims, who are mostly from less-privileged backgrounds. TNM revisits a few sensational cases of custodial torture and murder in Kerala in recent years to probe why justice remains elusive for victims.
Thirty-year-old Shemeer was taken into custody by Thrissur East police along with his two friends from Thrissur while they were travelling in a car on September 29, 2020. Shemeer’s wife Sumayya was also in the car when the police arrested them after claiming they had marijauna in their possession.
"They kept the three men and Sumayya in separate quarantine facilities as Covid-19 cases were high at that time. He died on October 1,” Abdul Salam told TNM. The prison officials claimed that Shameer suffered an epileptic attack, fell down and injured himself.
"But as per the post-mortem report there were 40 injuries on Shemeer’s body,” says Abdul Salam. Sumayya, who was informed about the death two days later, said the body of Shemeer had several visible injury marks. “His (Shemeer’s) cousin clicked the pictures while bathing the body. We had taken printouts of the pictures and the copies are with the Crime Branch. I came to know, when I was summoned to take a statement in Thrissur, that the jail officials were hesitant to take him to hospital. By the time they took him to the General hospital in Thrissur he was bleeding,” says Sumayya. The chargesheet in the case is yet to be submitted.
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Shemeer
A special team of the Crime Branch in November 2020 arrested six prison officers in connection with murder. The arrested personnel were deputy prison officers MS Arun and VS Subhash, assistant prison officers Pratheesh, TV Vivek and MR Ramesh and assistant jail superintendent Athul Puthuvalvila. The officers and jail superintendent Raju Abraham (for negligence) were earlier suspended by the then DGP (Prisons) Rishi Raj Singh. The six officers had been charged with murder under section 302 of IPC. “Six of them were reinstated in service immediately after getting bail. All the six officers are working in Kannur now. While four of them are working in the central prison, the other two are in the district prison,” a Crime Branch source told TNM.
Shemeer was a daily wage labourer. After his death, life became harder for Sumayya, who has two daughters aged five and seven. Shemeer’s father 72-year old Abdul Salam and his 57-year-old wife Isha Beevi are struggling too and find it difficult to raise the resources needed for a lengthy legal battle.
It took months of investigation by a Commission of Enquiry and a second autopsy after exhumation of the body from church cemetery, to reveal the brutal nature of the custodial torture 49-year-old Rajkumar underwent while under illegal detention by police in Nedumkandam in June 2019. An accused in a chit fund fraud case, he was taken into custody by officers of Nedumkandam police station on June 12, 2019. For the next four days he was brutally tortured. He died on June 21 at the Peermade Taluk hospital, where he was admitted with injuries.
The post-mortem report showed that Rajkumar sustained a total of 22 injuries including a fracture of the sternum and four ribs. It also said the injuries numbered 18 to 21 were indicative of the victim being subjected to 'falanga', a method of torture. Falanga refers to repeated application of blunt trauma to the feet or palms using a truncheon or a length of pipe to punish or obtain a confession.
Rajkumar
The government on July 6, 2019 appointed Justice Narayana Kurup, a former judge of the Kerala High Court and former chairman of the State Police Complaints Authority to probe the allegations of torture. The judicial commission recommended the dismissal of officers who were named in the chargesheet. The Kerala State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in a report had recommended that the police officers responsible should be terminated from service.
It is more than a year since the state government decided to dismiss the nine police officers named in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheet in the Rajkumar murder case case. But the officers – Sub Inspector Sabu KA, Assistant Sub Inspectors Regimon CB and Roy P Varghese, drivers Niyas S and Sajeev Antony, Home Guard James KM, Civil Police Officer Jithin K George, Senior CPOs Biju Lukose and Geetha Gopinath – could not be terminated after they moved the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT)l against the order.
KB Venugopal, the district police chief for Idukki at the time was questioned in the case was transferred in July 2019 but was given a posting in the Anti-terror Squad. “KB Venugopal continued at the Anti-Terrorist Squad after the incident and retired a year after,” says CP Udayabhanu, who was the counsel for Venugopal, told TNM.
In 2018, the custodial death of SR Sreejith, a 26-year-old youth, received media attention as it was the fifth such incident after the Left Democratic Front government assumed power in 2016. Sreejith of Varappuzha in Ernakulam district was arrested by the police on April 6, 2018, as a suspect in a case of abetment to suicide of KM Vasudevan. Vasudevan had hanged himself after a gang broke into his house and assaulted him. Sreejith, who was taken into custody by the Rural Tiger Force, an elite group of police officers allegedly under the direct command of AV George, who was the rural police chief of Ernakulam, died on April 9 in a private hospital. Sreejith's autopsy found the cause of death was 'blunt trauma' sustained on the abdomen. He also suffered rupture of the intestine and septicaemia, which led to multiple organ failure. Bruises were also found on 18 parts of the body including his testicles.
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Sreejith
The ten police officers, who were involved in the case, were suspended but were reinstated in December 2018 by the then Inspector General of Police, Kochi range, Vijay Sakhare. The officers reinstated were North Paravur Circle Inspector Crispin Sam, Sub Inspector (SI) Deepak, Additional SI (ASI) Jayanandan, Grade ASI Sudheer, senior Civil Police Officer (CPO) Santosh Baby, CPO Sreeraj, CPO Sunil Kumar and additional CPOs Santhosh Kumar, Jithin and Sumesh.
“All the accused police personnel were reinstated while AV George was promoted,” alleges Advocate CP Peethambaran, who was the counsel for Sreejith’s family, told TNM. AV George, who had a smooth career, retired on March 31 this year as District Police Chief, Kozhikode.
It’s more than four years after Vinayakan, a 19-year-old Dalit youth died by suicide after he was allegedly tortured in police custody in Thrissur in July 2017. An investigation by the Crime Branch and post-mortem report confirmed that the Dalit youth was subjected to severe custodial torture by police officers at Pavaratty police station in Thrissur. As per the post-mortem examination report there were several scars on Vinayakan's forhead, his right nipple and lower abdomen, all pointing towards torture.
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Vinayakan
Civil Police Officers Sajan and Sreejith of Pavaratty police station, accused of the torture were suspended, but reinstated after a period of six months.
It is rare that police officers, accused of custodial torture and murder in Kerala are convicted. It is even rarer for senior police officers to have chargesheets against them. The trial in one of the most sensational custodial murder cases involving senior police officials – that of Sampath of Puthur in Palakkad – is still pending at the CBI Special Court -II in Kochi after it was transferred from the Ernakulam chief judicial magistrate court in November 2019. Sampath, who was arrested following the murder of Sheila, wife of V Jayakrishnan, a leading businessman, and sister of an IAS officer, was found dead in police custody in March 2010. Sampath died as a result of continuous torture while in the custody of police at the River Side Cottage, Malampuzha. As per the post-mortem examination, the cause of death was internal bleeding inside the tissues and the brain due to the blunt injuries sustained.
The CBI has filed two chargesheets in the case but excluded 17 persons including two IPS Officers – Vijay Sakhare and Mohammed Yasin – and two DySPs. The CBI had, however, recommended department-level action against Sakhare.
The trial in the Udayakumar case, a 26-year-old youth murdered by Fort police in September 2005, which resulted in conviction of the accused 13 years later in 2018 was one of the few instances where the victims’ kin felt justice and closure were tangible. Udayakumar was taken into custody after being wrongly accused of theft as some money was found on him. The custodial death of Udayakumar shocked the conscience of the civil society as the policemen had used a third degree torture method of 'rolling' heavy wooden logs or steel pipes on him. K Jitu Kumar, and S V Sreekumar, who were constables (civil police officers) at the time of the crime were convicted and sentenced to death by a CBI special court in Thiruvananthapuram in July 2018. Though they were sentenced for the crime, they were promoted as an assistant sub-inspector and senior civil police officer respectively. KV Soman, another accused in the case, died during the course of the trial. The conviction is believed to be the first instance of capital punishment for serving police officers in the state. Sreekumar died of cancer while Jithukumar’s capital punishment is pending as he has filed an appeal against his sentence.
The Fort police station was recently in the news over allegations of custodial torture after R Kumar, a 40-year-old autorickshaw driver and resident of Ambalathra in Thiruvananthapuram, taken into custody in a mistaken case of identity suffered spinal cord injury allegedly due to police assault.
In February, an investigation was ordered after a person taken into custody by Thiruvallam police in Thiruvananthapuram, died after allegedly suffering from chest pain. The autopsy of Suresh P, the victim, revealed that he had died of cardiac arrest. However, his family members and local residents alleged that he died of custodial torture.
In a rare instance, the police personnel who had tortured a man, Ayyappan, while in police custody were recently convicted due to the dogged determination of his wife Omana.
Ayyappan was a daily wage labourer hailing from Ezhukone in Kollam district. The incident dates back to February 1996 when he had a tiff with his employer over non-payment of wages as agreed. The employer called his relative who was a cop and asked him to intervene. A couple of days later two cops dragged Ayyappan to the Ezhukon police station, filed a case against him and brutally tortured him. The injuries from the torture resulted in Ayyappan being bed-ridden for one-and-half years.
Ayyappan and Omana/PC/thefederal
Omana recalls hiding behind a tree near the police station and waiting for news about her husband. "I stood behind a tree since I was not allowed to meet him. I saw that one of the policemen was naked. He urinated and passed it to my husband when he asked for drinking water," Omana said. The cops had even burnt the tongue of Ayyappan with a cigarette. She began a legal fight on advice of lawyers, who saw the policemen leaving Ayyappan on the road near a court after being released on bail. The fight was against five policemen- Rajagopal, Maniraj, Sharafudeen, Baby and CK Podiyan. While the case against Ayyappan was dismissed, the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Kottarakkara in 2009 sentenced the policemen to one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000. In 2012, their appeal at a higher court was dismissed. The policemen then moved the High Court, which took nine years to dismiss their plea. By the time the HC dismissed the appeal, Baby and Podiyan were dead while the three others had retired from service. The three retired cops moved the Supreme Court, but their appeal was dismissed in January this year. The apex court also directed the cops to surrender in four weeks. They were eventually sent to jail.
It was the sight of Ayyappan being brutalised that made Omana determined for a legal battle. "I wanted them in jail at least for a day. We had no money, but we were still determined to fight. The policemen offered us lakhs of rupees on more than one occasion, but I didn't want to give up. We lost our youth fighting the case. He was 33 years and I was 28 years when he was brutally beaten in custody. But now I am content that I have done this much," says Omana.
Data by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has shown that 1,888 custodial deaths were reported across the country between 2001- 2020 and 353 police personnel were chargesheeted but only 26 of them were convicted. In 2018, the country reported 70 deaths in custody but the mandatory judicial enquiries were conducted only in 27 cases or 39%. Kerala was one of six states that shied away from judicial inquiries. The state has ordered judicial probes in cases like that of Rajkumar or preferred a CBI inquiry if there is a public outcry. As per NHRC guidelines, a probe by a Judicial Magistrate or Metropolitan magistrate is mandatory in cases of custodial death where there is reasonable suspicion for foul play or well-founded allegation of commission of offence.
In Kerala, a police officer who commits any misconduct or offence may be subjected to departmental inquiry under the Kerala Police Departmental Enquiries (Punishment and Appeal) Rules,1958 notified by the government. A police officer if convicted for an offence involving moral turpitude or serious misconduct can be dismissed or compulsorily retired by the government. Judicial Commissions are appointed when there is a huge outcry like in the case of Rajkumar.
Advocate Madhusoothanan, who has represented victims of custodial torture, said that the punishment that the police personnel or officers get for crimes like this is not proportionate to the crimes they did. "It's in the rarest of rare cases that they get punished. In the case of Ayyappan too, the accused police personnel were never dismissed from service. Most of the police personnel manage to get their conviction suspended at the appeal stage itself and hence they won't need to face any department-level enquiries,” says Madhusoodanan. Referring to Ayyappan’s case, he said Omana had to fight for 26 years. "One person died during the trial and others retired by the time the Supreme Court confirmed the punishment. They received all the benefits including promotion even as the case went under trial. This reinforces their belief that they won't get punished regardless of the gravity of the crime they commit. Even if they get convicted, it takes a long time," Madhusoothanan added.
Thushar Nirmal Sarathi, a human rights activist, arrested under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA), says such crimes are recurring as the police act like goons for those in power. “The question is who would investigate criminal cases against the police? The victims have to submit evidence to the police, bring witnesses to the court. They also have to fight with the police, which is the mighty state itself on the other side. There would be flaws in the FIRs, as they are prepared by the colleagues of the officers, in such cases leaving enough loopholes for the accused to be acquitted. Departmental inquiry would also go in the same way with a mutual understanding. In criminal jurisprudence one of the biggest dilemmas is dealing with the illegal activities of the law-enforcing agencies. Those who fight such cases require an unrelenting will to keep on fighting,” Thushar told TNM.
Edited by Binu Karunakaran