Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday separated the sentence of four police officers for the death of a 28 -year -old man for questioning in the theft case in 2005.
A bench of Justices King Vijayaraghavan V and KV Jayakumar acquitted four officers, Jeetakumar K, TK Haridas, T Ajitkumar and a Sabu, deciding that the prosecution could not establish allegations against them beyond a proper suspicion.
The High Court also rapidly criticized the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), claiming that its investigation in the case was “tainted” and “vitated”.
“We are forced to believe that an flawed and tainted investigation has finally given rise to the failure of the prosecution case of Udayakumar. The evidence added before the court, if its tainted and illegalness bite, is not enough to convict the crime of the accused,” the Division Bench said.
Udayakumar’s mother Prabhavati, who chased the case for two decades to seek justice for her son, broke on Wednesday. “My son was killed by the accused officers 4,000. How can any court give freedom to such officers? Tomorrow, they will kill more people, ”he said crying.
In 2018, the CBI court convicted five police personnel for the death of Udayakumar in Thiruvananthapuram. Two of them, Jeetakumar K and SV Srikumar were sentenced to death. The other three – vaccines Haridas, T Ajitkumar and one Sabu – were sentenced to three years in jail.
SV Srikumar, who was sentenced to death, died during the appeal proceedings.
According to the prosecution, Udayakumar was raised by two officers associated with Srikandeswaram Park to Thiruvananthapuram in the early hours of September 27, 2005, on suspicion of theft.
The accused officials found their interpretation for currency notes in their possession unsatisfactory and allegedly began torturing him, killing the soles of his feet with a bamboo stick. Another accused officer, who died during the test, kneaded an iron pipe on his thighs, crushing his thigh muscles. He was then taken to the Circle Inspector’s office, where he was taken away and beaten again.
Udayakumar died on the same day at 11:45 am at Government Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, causing a big resentment against the Omen Chandy government coming to power at that time.
The CBI said the three officials formed documents to protect the prominent accused involved in torture, made false entries in the General Diary (GD) and filed a false backded FIR to support a legend of fictional arrest.
The beginning of the case was investigated by the crime branch unit of the state police and later transferred to the CBI at the request of the victim’s mother.
But the High Court was important for the CBI inquiry.
“The high-handed and completely illegal process adopted by the CBI, to convert an eye witness, who had no real relations with the incident, in an approval, to indiscriminately dilapidated all the witnesses and send them as a gun-point to send them as a gun-point on the gun-point, to support them for this situation, to include them in this situation;
The bench also underlined that the testimony of the prosecution witnesses had “major contradictions”, most of which are approval, with “shiny investigative defects”.
