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Thoothukudi: Is govt trying to 'bury' truth along with victims' bodies?

Policemen assault a protester in Thoothukudi | PTI

Masanam (71) is inconsolable. Lying on a torn mat on the floor of her small two-room house at Peikulam, near Thoothukudi, she has not taken even a drop of water after her son Selva Sekar (42) succumbed to his injuries on May 23 at the Government Hospital in Thoothukudi. Sekar was one of the victims of the police firing against protesters demanding closure of the Sterlite copper plant in the area.

Masanam's only worry now is whether she will get her son’s body or if his body will be cremated by the revenue department officials as an unclaimed body.

“In the court, the government said that the postmortems of all the 13 dead have been done. So the court ordered to freeze the bodies till May 30. But till date, out of the 13 victims, postmortems have been conducted on only seven victims and that too by forcing the relatives,” says S. Parthasarathy, a senior advocate in Thoothukudi who filed a PIL against the police firing in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on May 23.

The court order on the status of the victims' bodies is awaited. Parthasarathy spoke to THE WEEK on the government's attempt to evade an inquiry into the firing.

M. Jayakumar, a relative of Sekar, told THE WEEK about the family's harrowing experiences. “The revenue officials have been calling me, pressuring us to sign the consent form for postmortem. We want to wait till the court order. But the revenue inspector says the body is lying on the floor in the mortuary and they cannot preserve it if the postmortem is not conducted. They say the court has told them to freeze the bodies only after postmortem. I am afraid the officials themselves will do the postmortem without our consent,” laments Jayakumar.

Though Jayakumar is firm on not signing the consent form, he is worried whether his cousin’s body would get decomposed and later all evidence would be erased. “Sekar’s sister and I went to the Government Hospital mortuary. The officials there showed us three papers. One was the consent form, one was a plain letter saying that we want to take the body to cremate after the postmortem and the other was to say that my cousin died in an accident. How can we accept this?” asks Jayakumar.

When Jayakumar and the family were shocked to see the third paper, the officials told them it is enough if they signed the first two and take the body.

Sekar was one of the protesters who died during the police firing against protesters in Thoothukudi on May 22. “Sekar and I were among the crowd. When we reached near the Thoothukudi collector’s office gate, when the teargas shells were fired, I lost track of him,” says Jayakumar.

Sekar was shot on both his legs. Unable to run, when he was lying on the floor bleeding, the policemen, according to Jayakumar, stomped on his chest and back. Sekar was later rushed to the hospital by the policemen themselves as he was bleeding profusely.

“We heard that he was in the Thoothukudi Government Hospital and we rushed there in the evening,” says Shantha, one of Sekar’s sisters. At the hospital, Sekar was administered treatment. He had five stitches on his head and the bullets in his legs were removed. “He told us that the police stomped on his chest. He was conscious till the next morning. But later, his chest started bleeding heavily. The doctors tried to save him. But his pulse dropped,” says Jayakumar.

But more than the treatment and the loss of life, what has put Sekar's family in a fix now is the question of whether they should sign the postmortem consent form or not. “We don’t need their compensation money. We shall give back the money to them. Let this government step down,” says Jayakumar as his eyes smouldered in anger.

Like Sekar, even the family of J. Snolin—a 17-year-old girl who died after being shot in the mouth during the Thoothukudi protest—alleged they were also forced into consenting to a postmortem. “I signed in a form saying she is my daughter. They performed the postmortem immediately. The revenue officers told if I don’t agree, they will say it is an unclaimed body and would have been cremated. So we agreed,” Snolin's father Nixon (47) told THE WEEK.

Nixon and his wife Vasantha are inconsolable. But Nixon has decided to wait till the court order to get his daughter’s body to do her final rites despite pressure from the government officials in Thoothukudi.

Parthasarathy confirms that the families of the victims have been coerced into signing the consent forms. “Yesterday, the officials forced the family of another victim, Kaliappan, to sign the consent form and conducted the postmortem.” Kaliappan was shot dead after the riots near Anna Nagar, at Thoothukudi, when miscreants hurled petrol bombs on the policemen on duty. Kaliappan was killed in the second day of police firing.

“The government is deliberately trying to erase the available records and create fresh records even before the commission of inquiry into the Thoothukudi firing incidents could begin. By coercing the families to sign the postmortem consent forms and by asking them to give a consent letter to take the bodies, the government wants to ensure that there is no evidence available by way of re-postmortem,” argued Parthasarathy.