Tamil Nadu: DSP transferred after SHRC issued notice to Kancheepuram police for custodial torture

CHENNAI: Days after a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), M. Sundaresan, conducted a thorough investigation and submitted a report before the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on the attack on an ex-MDMK worker and an electrician, who were arrested in the murder of a retired woman inspector of police at Kancheepuram, the DSP has been transferred to the Mayiladuthurai district Prohibition Enforcement Wing (PEW) in the existing vacancy.
Sources in the SHRC confirmed that the SHRC ordered a detailed probe into the custodial torture based on the detailed report submitted by DSP Sundaresan. The single transfer order was issued on 10 October by the Tamil Nadu police DGP, Shankar Jiwal.
The same DSP was earlier assigned by the SHRC chairperson, S. Manikumar, and member, V. Kannadasan, to handle the three encounters of rowdy Thiruvengadam, Kakkathope Balaji, and Seizing Raja reported in the city.
As per the order, the head of the police force has requested the secretary of the SHRC to relieve the DSP and suggested making necessary additional charge arrangements with instructions to assume charge of the new post. If the DSP, who has been transferred, went on leave on medical grounds, he may be referred to the Medical Board.
The order also stated that the SHRC office is to inform the DGP office of the relieving date of DSP Sundaresan. Siva Kanchi police are probing the suspicious death of a retired woman police inspector, Kasturi Parthasarathy, 62, based on the complaint lodged by her son, P. Kamesh, who works as an assistant professor at a university in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on 21 August.
Police arrested E. Valaiyapathy, 65, a former MDMK worker, and Prabhu, 52, an electrician, in connection with the murder in August.
Secretary of JAACT, Asirvatham, claimed, “Prabhu and Valaiyapathi suffered severe health complications, and they had to undergo dialysis even though they had never kidney-related ailments. This is very similar to the Sathankulam incident in which Jayaraj and his son Bennicks were beaten to death in police custody during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.”