Suspended Assistant Superintendent of Police Balveer Singh and 13 others, who have been accused of removing the teeth of four persons after arresting them in different cases, were granted bail by a trial court. Granting the bail, Judicial Magistrate D. Triveni adjourned the case to December 26.
Accusing Mr. Singh and 13 of his subordinate police officers and policemen in Ambasamudram Sub-Division of uprooting their teeth with cutting pliers after being arrested in connection with “petty cases”, four persons had filed complaints against them. After Sub-Collector, Cheranmahadevi, Mohammed Shabbir Alam inquired about the complaints from March 26 and recorded the statements of the victims,
The State Government placed Mr. Singh under suspension on March 29.
As the Sub-Collector submitted his report to District Collector K.P. Karthikeyan, the Tamil Nadu government appointed a high-level committee headed by senior IAS officer P. Amudha to probe this incident based on the Collector’s recommendation.
Following the inquiry on April 17 and 18, her report highlighted evidences to strengthen the charges against the young police officer, the case was transferred to CB-CID for investigation on April 20.
After inquiring the complainants, the CB-CID filed the charge sheet in the cases registered based on the complaints filed by Vedanarayanan, Surya, Venkatesh, and Arunkumar.
The charge sheet cited Mr. Singh, inspector of police Rajakumari, sub-inspectors Murugesh and Abraham Joseph, special sub-inspector Ramalingam, who has retired from service, constables Sadam Hussein, Vivek Andrews, Rajkumar, Sudalai, Vignesh, Muthu Selvakumaran, Manikandan, Karthik Raja, and Esakki Raja as accused.
The investigating agency has invoked Sections 294 (b), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous weapon), 506 (1) (criminal intimidation)o and Sections 109, 201, 167 and 220 of Juvenile (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 against the accused.
As the cases came-up for the first hearing before First Judicial Magistrate D. Triveni on Friday, advocate Maharajan, who appeared for the victims, submitted that the charge sheet copies should not be shared with the accused as they had not obtained interim bail and demanded their arrest. After the Judicial Magistrate was informed that the accused were ready with bail applications and prepared to submit sureties, she passed over the hearing of the case for a while.
When the case was taken-up again at, Mr. Maharajan pointed out that the CB-CID “had not collected properly” the key evidence, such as the cutting pliers used for removing the teeth of the victims during custodial torture and their blood-stained dresses, and had not seized the cars, in which the victims were taken to a private lodge etc.,.
As the Judicial Magistrate wanted to confirm these charges, it was informed that the blood-stained baton alone had been recovered from the police station. “Since the investigating agency could not recover the cutting pliers, we’ve mentioned it in the charge sheet that evidence had been concealed,” Mr. Maharajan said.
Mr. Maharajan, while pointing out a few rulings by various courts, demanded the arrest of the accused for having hidden the evidence before the hearing was passed over again.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Maharajan said the accused should be remanded in judicial custody.
“If an ordinary man is an accused, he is arrested and remanded in judicial custody if she or he had concealed the evidence. Since the vital evidences in this case like the cutting pliers and the blood-stained dresses have not been recovered by the CB-CID, it shows clearly that the accused police officers did not cooperate with the Investigation Officer, who should have arrested and remanded them in judicial custody. We suspect that the prosecution is helping the accused and hence the trial of the case should be transferred to some other place,” Mr. Maharajan said.
He also noted that he would prefer an appeal if bail was granted to the accused. Advocate Durairaj, who appeared for the accused, said anyone, who appears before the court after being summoned by the court, cannot be arrested, as per law. As the accused have appeared before the court upon receiving the summons from the court, they have been granted bail.
“The opposition being raised by a few against granting of bail and demanding their arrest, is against the Criminal Procedure Code. Their opposition is for mere publicity,” Mr. Durairaj said.
