On Sunday, hundreds of people marched on the streets of Thiruvananthapuram in solidarity with Puthenveettil Sreejith, who has been protesting outside the Kerala secretariat for more than two years, demanding that those responsible for his brother Sreejiv’s death in police custody be punished.
Earlier that day, the Kerala government said that it would once again ask the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over Sreejiv’s case. The CBI had turned down a similar request by the state government in July as “it was not an exceptional case that warranted the central agency’s investigation”.
“The state government wants the CBI to review its earlier stand,” a statement from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office said on Sunday.
On Monday, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and Alappuzha MP KC Venugopal told reporters in New Delhi that Union Minister Jitendra Singh had promised that the CBI would take over Sreejiv’s case. Later that evening, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met Sreejith and his mother in Thiruvananthapuram and assured them that the government would support them in their efforts to secure justice.
After the meeting, 30-year-old Sreejith told reporters that he would continue his protest until the CBI took charge of the case. “I will end my sit-in after they launch the investigation,” he told reporters.
Mass attention
A resident of Parassala village in Thiruvananthapuram district, Sreejith launched his agitation in 2015 after the government initially refused to order a CBI inquiry into the custodial death of his brother the previous year.
He fought a lonely battle for two years, cutting a solitary figure outside the secretariat’s compound where he sat every day. A few handmade posters gave onlookers details of why he was protesting and the number of days he had been sitting there.
His protest, which entered the 766th day on Monday, also saw the young man going on hunger strike intermittently in a bid to grab the attention of the people and authorities. But though local newspapers carried sporadic reports about the protest, the matter captured mass attention only last week after Malayalam television channel Asianet News telecast Sreejith’s story. The Asianet video detailing Sreejith’s fight for justice was widely shared on social media and a Facebook campaign – #justiceforsreejith – was soon launched. All of this drew people from faraway places for Sunday’s protest march.
Death in police custody
Sreejiv died on May 21, 2014, in a Thiruvananthapuram hospital, two days after he was taken into custody on charges of theft. Sreejith said that the police took Sreejiv to the police station the day before a woman he was believed to be in a relationship with was getting married. Sreejith said that this was done at the behest of the woman’s relative, who was a policeman.
The police claimed that Sreejiv committed suicide while being taken into custody by consuming poison that he had concealed in his underwear. But the State Police Complaints Authority, which inquired into the death following Sreejith’s complaint, confirmed that Sreejiv had died due to police torture while in custody. The report said Parassala Circle Inspector Gopakumar, additional sub-inspector Philippose, and civil police officers Prathapachandran and Vijayadas had assaulted Sreejiv and given him poison. The report added that they also fabricated evidence to cover up the murder.
The former chairman of the authority, Justice Narayana Kurup, reiterated the findings on Sunday. “Sreejiv died in police torture during his custody,” he told reporters in Kochi. “The authority ordered compensation of Rs 10 lakh to his dependents and appropriate punishment for the culprits.”
However, this order was stayed by the Kerala High Court.
“I had approached the Home Ministry many times, but no action was taken on my complaint,” said Sreejith, adding that this was why he started his agitation.
During Monday’s meeting, the chief minister is reported to have told Sreejith and his mother that the state government would not challenge any move to vacate the court stay.
‘A ray of hope’
The long struggle has physically weakened Sreejith who used to be a district-level bodybuilder. But he said that he was now happy to see hundreds of people marching to demand justice for his brother. “It gave me a ray of hope,” he told a television channel on Sunday.
He said only a CBI inquiry could bring out the truth behind his brother’s death. “I do not think that the Kerala police will conduct a fair investigation,” he said. “But I hope justice will prevail at the end of the day.”
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