Family of Dalit youth S. Sureshkumar, whose death caused a controversy in Kanniyakumari district, accepted his body after four days.
A. Kathir, founder and executive director of Evidence, a Madurai-based NGO, who was involved in the talks with police, said he and the family had decided to take the case to court as they had no faith in police. “Though the FIR talks about murder, the police have not even invoked Article 306 of the IPC (abetting suicide) in the case. The police are not ready to share the details of the post mortem report, but maintain that it is a case of suicide,” he said.
Sureshkumar, a native of Thovalai, was in love with a caste-Hindu woman and his family was questioned by the police on the complaint of her family. On the same day, he was found in an unconscious state. He died at Asaripallam Government Medical College Hospital.
Sureshkumar and his girl friend had shared messages through WhatsApp which had run into 150 pages. “They seemed to have had a very close relationship that the girl had given her certificate and Aadhaar card to him. Something went wrong in the last one week of Sureshkumar’s life,” Mr. Kathir said.
He said V. Badri Narayanan, Superintendent of Police, had promised to send a recommendation to the government for a job for Sureshkumar’s brother.
