On Sunday, as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami said the case of the custodial deaths of father-son duo in Sathakulam police station in Thoothukudi district will be transferred to the CBI, Kovilpatti judicial magistrate M.S. Bharathidasan, who was appointed by the Madurai bench of Madras High Court, was struggling to put together evidence in the case.
The next day Tamil Nadu government issued the order to transfer the case to the CBI. On the same day, Kovilpatti judicial magistrate, in a three-page report submitted to the registrar of Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, revealed the shocking details of the deaths of Jayaraj and Bennix. His report also said how the cops at the police station were non-cooperative, except a woman constable, Revathi, who was willing to offer details of what went down on the night of June 19.
The magistrate began the investigation on June 23, and on June 28, he visited the police station. The enquiry lasted for 15 hours. The report said the “policemen flexed their muscles” and added that his presence was not even acknowledged when he went to the police station with the court staff.
“ADSP D. Kumar and DSP Prathapan, who were at the police station, failed to salute or acknowledge my presence. D. Kumar exhibited muscle flexing kind of body language and when asked for documents related to the case, he disrespectfully addressed the other cops and asked them to bring it,” the report said.
The report said the woman constable, who was willing to offer information about the incidents of the night, was “was being intimidated” and was “afraid.” According to the magistrate, the woman constable was scared and asked him not to reveal her identity. “As she was giving her statement, the policemen outside the room, standing under the tree, were spying on her and intimidating her,” the magistrate said. The magistrate placed two court staff outside the room where her statement was being recorded so that she could reveal the details without being intimidated.
Revathi revealed that Jayaraj and Bennix were beaten throughout the night and there were blood stains on the lathis of cops and on the tables in the station. She asked the magistrate to collect these evidence before her colleagues would destroy or tamper with them.
The magistrate said the constable refused to sign when her statement was printed on paper. “Only after she was assured that she will be protected and kept safe, she agreed to sign in the paper,” he added.
The magistrate said even after he placed the court employees outside the station to protect the eyewitness and the evidence, the police officers were vitiating the atmosphere by heckling the court officials. “They created a disruptive environment and made the process of recording statements very difficult.”
After recording the statements, when the magistrate asked the cops to show him their lathis, they refused to do so. They initially behaved as if they did not hear his orders and handed them over only after repeated insistence. A policeman named Maharajan, passed on a disparaging comment: “you cant do anything.” He also said his lathi was in his hometown, and later claimed it was in the police quarters. “He walked around in all directions without any regard for the investigation and said he did not have a lathi at all,” the report stated.
According to the report, another cop jumped over the wall and escaped when he was asked to produce his lathi. The magistrate said the CCTV footage of the events that unfolded in the night of June 19 has been erased. “Despite the hard disk having 1TB storage, the settings were done in such a manner that the daily files get auto-deleted. There was no data of any recording since June 19 and it was all erased.”
Meanwhile, Justices P.N. Prakash and B. Pugalendi of the Madurai bench of Madras High Court, passed an order on June 30 saying the woman constable’s statement, where she spoke about the injuries on the father-son duo and the police lathis stained with blood, should be recorded under section 164 of CrPC by a judicial magistrate other than the Kovilaptti judicial magistrate and Sathankulam judicial magistrate.
As she expressed fear when submitting her eyewitness account, the court said the Thoothukudi collector should ensure the safety of the head constable and her family. “She may even be granted leave from duty as we fear that there will be attempt to intimidate her and make her resile from her version given to the learned judicial magistrate no 1. Kovilpatti,” the court said in its order.