Tamil Nadu: 9 cops get death sentence for father-son custodial death

In Tamil Nadu, the first additional district and sessions court in Madurai on Monday awarded death sentence to all the nine cops convicted in the murders of P Jeyaraj and his son J Beniks in Sathankulam in Tuticorin district in 2020. Jeyaraj and Beniks were taken to the Sathankulam police in Tuticorin district late in the evening of June 19, 2020, on charges of having kept their shop open beyond the deadline during the Covid-19 lockdown. They were brutally assaulted by the policemen at night and were lodged in Kovilpatti sub-jail the next day. Beniks died of injuries at the Kovilpatti govt hospital on June 22, 2020, while his father Jeyaraj died on June 23, 2020.
The court accepted the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) contention that the custodial torture was premeditated and carried out through the night, warranting the maximum punishment. Those convicted include inspector S Sridhar, sub-inspectors P Raghu Ganesh and K Balakrishnan, head constables S Murugan and A Samadurai, and constables M Muthuraj, S Chelladurai, X Thomas Francis and S Veilumuthu. A tenth accused, special sub-inspector Pauldurai, died of COVID-19 during the trial.
Jayaraj and Benniks were picked up on June 19 for allegedly keeping their mobile accessories shop open in violation of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Investigators later found that they were subjected to sustained torture inside the Sathankulam police station, suffering severe injuries, including blunt-force trauma and heavy bleeding.
The Madras high court took suo motu cognizance of the custodial deaths June 24, 2020. On June 29, the high court handed over the case to the CBI. After the Tuticorin principal district judge, who had been closely monitoring the case, informed that personnel at the police station were not cooperating with the Kovilpatti judicial magistrate's inquiry, the high court directed the Tuticorin district collector to depute revenue officers for taking control of the police station for collecting relevant materials.The CBI filed the chargesheet against nine policemen on Sept 25, 2020. It filed a supplementary chargesheet on Aug 12, 2022.