Two Kerala policemen sentenced to death for custodial death 13 years ago

A special CBI court on Wednesday awarded the death sentence to two policemen who had tortured a 26-year-old man to death at a Thiruvananthapuram police station 13 years ago.

CBI judge K Nazar said the main accused – civil police officers K Jithakumar and SV Sreekumar – deserved maximum punishment because it was a “rarest of the rare” crime. The two will also have to pay Rs 2 lakh each to the mother of the victim, who fought the case all by herself for 13 years.

The court had found five officers guilty of the crime on Tuesday. While Jithakumar and Sreekumar were convicted of murder, the others — then assistant commissioner of police TK Haridas, circle inspector EK Sabu and sub-inspector Ajith Kumar — were held responsible for destroying evidence and trying to cover up the crime. A sixth accused died during the course of the trial.

According to the CBI chargesheet, Udayakumar — a worker at a scrap shop in Thiruvananthapuram — was taken into custody



in September 2005 in connection with a previous case. Upon finding Rs 4,000 in Udayakumar’s possession, they accused him of stealing it and subjected him to custodial torture.

When the worker was let off the next day, he approached the policemen and demanded that they return his money. This infuriated the accused, who tortured him again after implicating him in another case. Udayakumar died the next day.

A post-mortem examination revealed over 40 injuries on the victim’s body.

The CBI presented an iron pipe allegedly used to torture the victim during the trial, which faced several delays over the years as key witnesses turned hostile. The CBI took over the probe in 2008, after Udayakumar’s mother — Prabhavati Amma — told the Kerala high court that the state police was dragging its feet on the investigation.

“I am happy that I finally got justice. I pray that no mother is forced to undergo my plight,” the 68-year-old woman said.