A district court in Madurai on Monday delivered a landmark verdict in connection with the custodial deaths of two traders, P. Jeyaraj and his son J. Bennicks, at the Sathankulam police station in Thoothukudi in June 2020. The court sentenced all the nine policemen to death.
On March 23, while delivering the final orders in the case, the court had said that the quantum of their sentence would be pronounced later, while convicting all the nine policemen who brutally tortured Jeyaraj and Bennicks. A total of 10 policemen were arrested following the deaths. Inspector S. Sridhar was identified as the primary accused in the case. Besides Sridhar, sub-inspectors P. Raghu Ganesh and K. Balakrishnan, head constables S. Murugan and A. Saamidurai, and constables M. Muthuraj, S. Chelladurai, X. Thomas Francis, and S. Veilumuthu were also convicted. Special sub-inspector Pauldurai, who was also an accused in the case, died during trial after contracting Covid-19.
The CBI and the counsel representing the family of Jeyaraj and Bennicks sought maximum punishment for the policemen, saying it is a rarest of rare case. The CBI said the victims were subjected to brutal torture by the policemen, knowing that it was sufficient to kill them. The Madurai additional district and sessions court has sentenced nine policemen, including Inspector S. Sridhar, to death. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 15 lakh on inspector Sridhar
“It was a heinous crime and the traders were tortured all through the night at the Sathankulam police station,” Jeyaraj’s counsel told the court.
The case was taken up on a suo motu cognisance by the Maduri Bench of the Madras High Court in 2020 after the custodial death of Jeyaraj and Bennicks sent shockwaves across the state. The then AIADMK government transferred the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as there was huge public outrage after the death of the father-son duo.
The father-son duo was arrested by police and brought to the Sathankulam police station saying that they violated the Covid 19 lockdown rules. But the CBI said the investigation revealed that they had not violated the rules. The CBI said the investigation revealed Jayaraj was picked from his shop near the Kamaraj statue at 7.30 pm on June 19, 2020, and lodged at the Sathankulam police station in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy hatched by the accused. Bennicks rushed to the station to inquire about the arrest of his father after he got information from the locals. Bennicks objected to the police torturing his father, seeing the cops beating him. After this as there was an altercation between the police and Bennicks, the father-son duo were confined at the police station. They were beaten up brutally as the “police wanted to teach them a lesson.”
The torture continued through the night and the two were made to clean the blood that oozed out from their wounds. Later in the morning the sanitary worker was asked to wipe off the evidence. The two were taken to the hospital, after a false case was registered against them, as per the CBI chargesheet. In the supplementary chargesheet, the CBI submitted a report on the examination of video footage available in the case and confirmed the brutal torture meted out by Jeyaraj and Bennicks.
The Madurai court, while pronouncing the quantum of sentence, said that even if no appeal is filed, the trial court will forward the judgment to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence, as per legal procedure. “Those who choose to appeal may also have their petitions considered along with this process,” the court said.