A special team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials from New Delhi arrived in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday to investigate the deaths of traders P. Jayaraj, 58, and his son J. Benicks, 31, of Sattankulam, police sources said.
The Central agency took over the investigation into the sensational case at the State government’s request. Though the CBI’s Special Crimes Unit – II had adopted the First Information Report (FIR) of the Kovilpatti East police station in both cases under Section 176 (A)(1) of the CrPC, the mention of “illegal detention, murder, destruction of evidence, etc,” in the re-registered FIRs have raised eyebrows.
The FIRs registered by the Kovilpatti East police station were based on the complaints lodged by M. Shanker, Jail Superintendent, Kovilpatti sub-jail. The complaint referred to the health complications of remand prisoners Jayaraj and Benicks while in custody, and their subsequent deaths at a government hospital. The Jail Superintendent had requested the police to register a case and investigate the deaths of the remand prisoners. Two cases — both under Section 176 (1A)(1) (Inquiry by Magistrate into cause of death in custody) of the CrPC — were registered.
However, in the FIRs registered by the CBI, the investigation officer has also invoked Section 176 (1A)(1) of the CrPC. The suspected offences have been mentioned as “illegal detention, murder, destruction of evidence, etc,” which were not mentioned by the Jail Superintendent in his complaint. While the place of occurrence of the incident was mentioned as the Government Hospital, Thoothukudi, in the original FIR, the CBI’s FIR mentions the premises of the Sattankulam police station, which is about 100 km away from Kovilpatti.
The CBI’s FIR mentions June 19 to 22 as the date of occurrence, whereas the original FIR had mentioned June 22. “FIR is only a tool to set the process of law in motion. The investigating agency can alter the sections on the basis of further investigation. In this case, the allegations are very much in the public domain, and it is not wrong to make a mention of those charges on the list of suspected offences in the FIR,” a senior Tamil Nadu police officer said.