Maulana Muhammad Sanaullah Qasmi Deputy Nazim of Emirate Shariah Bihar Odisha and Jharkhand
When the police arrest a suspect, they cross all limits of violence and brutality to extract a confession. When a court grants the police a remand, the suspect is subjected to torture, resulting in severe internal injuries, making them unable to walk or move. If the suspect dies due to this brutality, no action is taken, and no punishment is meted out. As a result, the police become fearless and commit atrocities, even going to the extent of staging an encounter and riddling the suspect's body with bullets after they are dead.
For the first time, in April 2026, a special CBI court in Madurai sentenced nine police officers to death for torturing a suspect and causing the death of two people. Judge Mathew Kumar described the case as unprecedented and handed down a punishment that no court had ever given before.
The case involves 59-year-old Jayaraj and his 31-year-old son Bennicks, who ran a small mobile shop in Sathankulam, Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu. In June 2020, the police arrested them for keeping their shop open beyond the prescribed time during the coronavirus pandemic. On the third day in jail, Bennicks died due to internal bleeding, and a few hours later, Jayaraj also died due to grief and a ruptured lung.
The post-mortem report revealed that the police had committed extreme brutality, inserting a stick into their rectum, kicking Jayaraj's chest with heavy boots, tearing his skin, and breaking his toe fingers. The police continued to torture them even after a crowd gathered outside the station and some police officers tried to intervene. The head constable, A. Revathy, testified as an eyewitness before the CBI, despite being afraid, and her statement helped bring justice to the victims.
The CBI investigation, a woman police officer, and the judge worked together to bring the case to its conclusion, sentencing the nine police officers to death. However, they received threats from influential police networks throughout the process.
I believe that the case is not yet fully resolved, as those who tried to cover up and suppress the crime should also be punished. This includes Dr. N. Veetla, the medical officer at the Sathankulam government hospital, who failed to record the injuries on the victims' bodies and declared them "fit" to be sent to jail. Magistrate D. Saravanan was responsible for ensuring that the suspects were not tortured in custody but failed to do so, and the jail authorities in Kovilpatti also neglected their duty, allowing the two men to die in agony. The doctor, magistrate, and jailer are all responsible for their deaths, but they have not been adequately punished.
A survey report of over 8,000 police officers from 17 states reveals that between 2017 and 2022, more than 300 people died in police custody. The situation is such that in over 300 judicial inquiries, only one-third of the cases led to arrests, less than 80 cases resulted in charge sheets being filed, and not a single case ended in a conviction.
There is a need to change this situation, and India has signed the UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. However, there is no visible impact on the ground. Despite amendments to the existing police law and crime investigation, there is no clear mention of completely preventing brutality and torture. Therefore, without cleansing both "intent" and "policy," this task cannot be accomplished. If this trend of punishing police brutality continues, the chances of a decrease in such incidents will increase.
