MADURAI: In a damning indictment of the Sathankulam police, a
woman constable
attached to the station has deposed that
P Jeyaraj
and his son J Beniks were assaulted by policemen with lathis for a whole night, after their arrest on June 19.
Blows rained on the two till dawn had left blood stains on the batons and on a table at the station, she said. Apprehending destruction of the evidence, she requested the inquiring magistrate to take possession of the materials. She signed her statement only after the magistrate assured her of safety.
As she feared of being targeted, and also because she is a star witness who was present at the station when the father-son duo was tortured, the Madras high court has ordered protection for the policewoman and her family members. The bench of Justice P N Prakash and Justice B Pugalendhi also said it would be in the interests of justice to have her statement recorded under Section 164 CrPC by a judicial magistrate other than the one from Kovilpatti or Sathankulam. The judge further said she could even be granted leave, as they fear there will be an attempt to intimidate her and make her resign from her version given to Kovilpatti judicial magistrate M S Bharathidasan.
The statement had to be recorded under most intimidating circumstances at Sathankulam station on June 28, said the magistrate, adding that despite his instruction to wait outside police personnel were standing near a tree and were causing hindrance.
Magistrate Bharathidasan had to endure muscle-flexing by additional superintendent of police D Kumar at the station, and abject refusal of constable Maharajan to hand over his lathi to him. Another policeman ran away from the inquiry.
Indicating sabotage, the magistrate said that despite adequate storage space, the
CCTV system
at the station was programmed in such a way that the footage got erased every day. Since June 19, no footage was not available in the system, he said, adding, “it looked like they had been erased.”
A panic situation was prevalent at the police station, Bharathidasan said in his report to the Madras high court.
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