Daijiworld Media Network - Madurai
Madurai, Apr 7: In a landmark judgement that has sent shockwaves through the country’s law enforcement apparatus, the First Additional District and Sessions Court in Madurai on Monday sentenced nine police personnel to death for the brutal custodial killing of a trader and his son in 2020.
The victims, P Jayaraj (58) and his son J Benicks (31), died after being subjected to hours of extreme torture at the Sattankulam police station in southern Tamil Nadu. Judge G Muthukumaran, while pronouncing the capital punishment, held that the gravity of the crime fell under the "rarest of rare" category.
The convicts sentenced to gallows include then inspector S Sridhar, sub-inspectors K Balakrishnan and P Raghu Ganesh, head constables S Murugan and A Samadurai, and constables M Muthuraja, S Chelladurai, X Thomas Francis, and S Vailmuthu. A tenth accused, special sub-inspector Paldurai, died of Covid-19 during the trial in August 2020.
The night of horror
The case dates back to June 19, 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. Jayaraj was picked up from his shop near the Kamaraj statue at 7:30 pm following a minor verbal altercation over lockdown timings. When his son, Benicks, rushed to the station to intervene, both were wrongfully confined.
According to the CBI chargesheet, the police personnel hatched a criminal conspiracy to "teach them a lesson." The father and son were brutally assaulted throughout the night. In a chilling detail, investigators revealed that the victims were subsequently forced to clean their own blood from the station floor. To destroy evidence, a sanitation worker was later summoned to wash the premises, and the victims' blood-soaked clothes were discarded in a hospital dustbin.
Systemic failure and cover-up
The case gained national notoriety not just for the brutality of the violence, but for the apparent systemic collusion that followed. Despite their critical injuries, a "fit for remand" certificate was obtained through irregular means. Witnesses alleged that the magistrate remanded the duo with a mere gesture from a balcony without a proper physical examination of their condition.
Following their remand to the Kovilpatti sub-jail, Benicks succumbed to internal haemorrhaging on June 22, while his father, Jayaraj, passed away the following morning.
The legal battle
The deaths triggered massive protests across Tamil Nadu, forcing the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court to take suo motu cognisance. Expressing a lack of faith in the local police, the court handed the probe to the CB-CID before the CBI took over. A crucial turning point in the trial was the testimony of a woman head constable, S Revathy, who braved intimidation to describe the night of torture to the judicial magistrate.
While the defence attempted various delay tactics and former inspector Sridhar even sought to turn approver—a plea dismissed by the court—the prosecution successfully established the murder charges.
The verdict is being seen as a rare and significant instance of the judiciary holding the police accountable for custodial violence, ending a five-year battle for justice led by the surviving family members.