“The news of his death does not give us any happiness. With this, we are not going to get what we lost,” says Varghese, the father-in-law of Sanal Kumar, who died on November 5 after he was mowed down by a moving car during an altercation with Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), B Harikumar. The accused police officer, who went on the run soon after the incident, was found hanging at his house in Kallambalam in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
Speaking to TNM, Varghese, “We are considering this as god’s judgement. God has given him the punishment he deserves because the police was not able to do that. We have nothing else to say.” The Kerala police was criticised for their inability to arrest the prime accused and were accused of protecting Harikumar. Moreover, multiple changes made to the investigating probing the case were seen as attempts to delay the DySP’s arrest.
Following Sanal Kumar’s death, an action council was formed in his name. The council consisted of local politicians, friends and family of Sanal Kumar. The aim of the council was to ensure that justice is delivered to Sanal Kumar’s family and to ensure the DySP was arrested.
However, even as the news of Harikumar broke out on Tuesday, the action council has made it clear that they are not backing out from their fight till every single person who are accused in this case is arrested.
Speaking to TNM, Vishnupuram Chandrasekharan, the president of the Sanal Kumar Action Council said, “We will continue fighting till all the others involved in the case are also arrested, including Harikumar’s friend Binu and the other police officials who tried to rescue the DySP.”
“We also demand that an inquiry be launched against DGP Loknath Behera for ignoring various cases that were registered against DySP Harikumar in the past which proved that he was a criminal,” said Vishnupuram.
Pointing out that Harikumar’s death still shows the police in poor light, Vishupuram says, “The police is telling us that the body has been dead for more than a day. That means he has been in the house for some time and still the police was not able to catch him. There should be an inquiry into all this.”
He also notes that the action council will only be suspended after necessary action is taken against those police officials and politicians who tried to protect the DySP.