The State government has handed over the suspected custodial death of a 42-year-old man, Suresh Kumar, at the Thiruvallam police station recently to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The government had come under fire from the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the alleged third-degree murder.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan, Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala and Union Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan visited the deceased's house last week. They had separately accused the police of torturing and killing Suresh in custody.
Moral policing charge
The police had arrested Suresh, among others, on the charge of harassing a couple at Judge Hill, a scenic hilltop weekend holiday spot near Thiruvallam. The charge was that Suresh had played the moral police and assaulted the couple, accusing them of unchastity.
Suresh's death had caused a furore in the locality, with residents demanding a judicial inquiry into the incident. They said the police had roughed up Suresh at the arrest scene and, later, in their van and, subsequently, at the police station.
The police have contested the charges. They said the patrol team, which detained Suresh, had taken the suspect to a government hospital at Poonthura for medical examination before recording his arrest. The doctors at the hospital reportedly found nothing amiss with Suresh. The preliminary report of the post-mortem examination pointed to death due to cardiac arrest.
Forensic doctors had purportedly found questionable contusions on Suresh's body.
Against LDF policy
The Thiruvallam case, on the face of it, ran against the grain of the Left Democratic Front's law enforcement policy. A ruling front insider said that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had repeatedly said that preventing third degree was the government's priority. Moreover, the incident had put the government on the defence during the Budget session of the Assembly.
