‘Police were not willing to take him to hospital,’ allege family of dead Kerala man

Sajeevan, 42, collapsed after allegedly being beaten by the police at the Vadakara police station in Kozhikode. He soon died at a local hospital.
Sajeevan, a Kerala man who died after alleged custodial torture
Sajeevan, a Kerala man who died after alleged custodial torture
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The family of 42-year-old Sajeevan have alleged that custodial torture at the Vadakara police station resulted in his death on July 22. Sajeevan was taken into police custody when a car he was travelling in, collided with another. The police took Sajeevan from Kalleri near Vadakara in Kozhikode after the car he was travelling with his friends collided with another car at around 11.30 pm at Adyakkatheruvu Vadakara on July 21, Thursday. A few hours later, in the wee hours of Friday, Sajeevan died at the Co-operative hospital Vadakara. 

Sajeevan was travelling with his friends Shamnad and Jubair. “It was Jubair who told us about what happened at the police station. It was a Sub Inspector, an ASI (Assistant Sub Inspector) and a constable (a civil police officer) who beat Sajeevan. When Jubair questioned the cops asking what was the need for physical assault in a case like this, the cops beat him up too,” Arjun, a relative of Sajeevan told TNM. 

"Sajeevan, as Jubair said, had told the cops then that he had some uneasiness and chest pain after he was beaten up. But the cops ignored it saying it could be gas. If the police had taken him to hospital at that time, he would have been alive now. Instead, the police made him wait for 45 minutes. He developed uneasiness after being assaulted," Arjun added.

The police then asked Jubair and Sajeevan to keep the car inside the police compound (apparently to finish the formalities) and leave. Jubair was locking the car, when Sajeevan who was about to leave the police station compound, collapsed. 

"It was an auto rickshaw driver who saw him first collapse. By that time Jubair also came. The auto rickshaw drivers and Jubair asked the police to shift Sajeevan to a hospital. Another auto rickshaw driver called an ambulance and shifted him to Co-operative hospital Vadakara. He died at the hospital ten to 15 minutes after arriving. The auto rickshaw drivers, the ambulance driver and others present there, told us that the police were not willing to take him to hospital,” Arjun further said. The family has not yet received a copy of the post-mortem report.

"The chest pain began inside the police station, but the police ignored it despite him telling them about it,” Arjun added. The family has filed a complaint to the Circle Inspector of the police station. The case has been reportedly handed over to the Crime Branch. Sajeevan was a single child of his parents and was a labourer engaged in tree cutting. His father had died years ago and it was his mother who raised him. His mother used to work as house help for raising him. "He was very friendly to everyone and never got into any problems," Arjun recalled. The family is financially downtrodden. Both his mother and his mother's elder sister were dependent on Sajeevan. "Sajeevan's house is a tarpaulin-roofed one and in a dilapidated condition. Hence, they had moved to the house of his mother’s sister a year ago,” Arjun explained. 

Watch: This week on Let Me Explain, why Kerala is a hotbed for infectious diseases
 

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