Despite its claim that the police’s probe into the alleged murder of a youth, Sreejith of Varappuzha near Kochi over two months ago is progressing in the right direction, the Kerala Government on Thursday vehemently defended Superintendent of Police AV George, who is facing the charge of instructing his subordinate officers to take the youth into custody.
The State Director General of Prosecutions told the High Court on Thursday that there was not even a speck of evidence to name George, former SP (Ernakulam Rural) whose three subordinate officers had taken Sreejith into custody, as an accused in the case pertaining to the custodial murder. He said George had not issued instructions to take anyone into custody.
The Government made this submission in the court when it was considering a petition filed by Sreejith’s widow Akhila seeking orders for a CBI probe into the ‘murder’ of her husband. A special investigation team of the Kerala Police is presently probing the custodial death. The Government had on Wednesday ruled out a CBI probe in the case.
Sreejith (26), father of a three-year-old girl, was taken into custody by three officials from the now-disbanded Rural Tiger Force, constituted illegally by George, while he was asleep in his house at Devaswompadam, Varappuzha at midnight on April 6 in connection with the suicide of a neighbour. He died at a Kochi hospital on April 9 as a result of alleged torture in custody.
It was later established that Sreejith was not an accused in the case related to the neighbour’s suicide and that his arrest was a case of mistaken identity. The SIT has already arrested nine police officers – including the three RTF men – in connection with the incident and 11 have been suspended from service.
The Government submitted in the court that no evidence was available to establish that George had instructed his subordinates to take Sreejith into custody. The Opposition had accused the Government the other day of refusing to name George as an accused for protecting certain regional leaders of the ruling party, CPI(M), who were allegedly behind Sreejith’s arrest.
Unconvinced by the Government’s justification for not making George an accused, the High court asked whether the RTF men could have acted without the permission of their chief. It also wondered whether this was a lawless land where members of an illegally constituted police group could act on their own and without their chief’s instructions or permission.While stating that it was up to the court to decide whether it should probe the death of Sreejith, the CBI said that there could have been serious lapses from the part of the police in its probe from the very beginning. It pointed out that the police had failed to register the case under Section 302 of the IPC even after they were convinced that this was a case of murder.
The counsel for Sreejith’s widow persisted in his prayer for orders for a CBI investigation saying that the truth would not come out if the police probed the case in which police officials were the accused. The High Court is likely to pronounce its verdict on the plea seeking CBI probe on June 26.
like the Congress-led Opposition UDF, the family of Sreejith also believes that the RTF men were sent to take Sreejith into custody by none other than George who had allegedly received instructions from a ‘big’ regional leader of the CPI(M). “George must be made an accused. Without that, the probe would reach nowhere,” Sreejith’s brother Ranjith told the media.
The State Assembly had witnessed noisy scenes the other day over the special investigation team’s decision not to name George as an accused on the basis of a legal advice it had got from the Director General of Prosecutions and the Chief Minister’s statement that there was no need of a CBI probe into the custodial death.