Sattankulam police station is no stranger to allegations of custodial death. For the past 14 years, D. Femina has been fighting for justice for her brother, Arun, 20, who was beaten by the police in the station in 2006. He also died in a hospital.
She recalls: “The policemen violently knocked at the main door of our house around 10.30 p.m., on June 17, after a complaint was registered against Arun following a petty dispute. They barged into our house to pick him up. They beat him severely with their lathis. Then Inspector Srikumar kicked my brother on his abdomen as he was being taken to the police vehicle. When he fell down in pain, he was folded into the police vehicle like a piece of cloth.”
Sattankulam custodial deaths | When protectors turn perpetrators
Arun’s brother Vijay rushed to the police station only to see his brother being thrashed mercilessly by the police till he fainted.
When the police tried to wake up Arun, he lay motionless, says Femina. The police asked Vijay to take him after midnight. When Vijay took a grievously injured Arun to a private hospital, the doctor there asked to rush him to the Government Hospital. There the doctors declared him ‘brought dead’.
“My brother was healthy till the police detained him and killed him in just two and a half hours,” says Femina. She visited J. Selvarani, Benicks’ mother, to console her.
