CBI lodges FIR in Nikita jewel theft case linked to 'custodial death' of temple guard in Tamil Nadu

New Delhi, Aug 28 (PTI) The CBI has registered an FIR in the jewel theft case of JP Nikita in which the state police probe allegedly led to the custodial torture and later death of a temple guard, B Ajith Kumar, in Tamil Nadu's Sivagangai district, officials said Thursday.
    Taking over the FIR initially registered at the Thiruppuvanam police station on the complaint of Nikita, a professor at Muthaiya Pillai Women's Art College, Dindigul, the CBI has registered a case of theft under Section 303(2) of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS).
    The case is being probed by the Special Crime Unit of the agency, which is also probing the alleged custodial death of Ajith Kumar.
    The CBI recently filed a charge sheet against six police officials allegedly involved in the custodial death of Kumar. In its charge sheet filed before the chief judicial magistrate, the agency has named head constables G Kannan and S Prabhu, besides constables S Raja, A Ananth, S Sankaramanikandan and Ramachandran.
    In the theft FIR registered by the agency, it was alleged that she had gone to Madapuram Kali Temple with her mother, Sivagami, in their car on the morning of June 27.
    She had alleged that Kumar, dressed in what appeared to be the uniform of the Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department, approached her, and taking advantage of her mother's old age, offered to park the car and compelled her to give the keys.
    After returning to the vehicle, she found that her handbag had been tampered with, and upon checking, she discovered that the items of gold jewellery -- one 'Karumari Amman thali' chain weighing 6 sovereigns, two gold bangles weighing 2.5 sovereigns, and two stone-studded rings weighing 1 sovereign, totalling 9.5 sovereigns of gold jewellery -- were missing, the FIR alleged.
    The local police had picked up Kumar the same day for interrogation in connection with the jewel theft case. The next night, he was declared brought dead by police at a government hospital.
    The post-mortem, which took nearly three hours from 5.45 pm on June 29, revealed that Kumar had 44 external injuries on his legs, arms, abdomen, and chest at least 19 of them were deep and extended up to the muscle, as per officials.
    The death could have occurred about 12-24 hours before post-mortem, the report by forensic surgeons of the Madurai Medical College Hospital said, but did not specify the exact cause of death, pending further histopathological examination.
    The case was transferred to the CBI, which had registered a case of murder against the police personnel for murder in connection with the alleged custodial death.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)