A special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday awarded death penalty to two officers of the Kerala Police in the custodial death of Udayakumar, a scrapyard employee, in 2005.
Five policemen were convicted in the case on Tuesday. Another accused officer, KV Soman, died during the trial.
Civil police officers K Jithakumar and SV Sreekumar have also been directed to pay Rs 2 lakh each to the mother of the victim, the Hindustan Times reported.
CBI Special Judge J Nazar on Tuesday also held three police officers – then Assistant Commissioner (Fort) TK Haridas, then Circle inspector EK Sabu, and then Sub Inspector Ajith Kumar – guilty of conspiracy to register a false case against Udayakumar after his death.
EK Sabu and T Ajithkumar have been sentenced to six years in jail while TK Haridas was awarded three years in jail.
“God has finally answered my prayers,” Udayakumar’s mother Prabhavati told The Indian Express. “No police officer should dare to torture anyone like this under the garb of their uniform. I pray to god that no son should ever have to undergo such brutal torture at the hands of the police.”
The case
Jithakumar and Sreekumar had apprehended Udayakumar and his friend Sathish Kumar from Sreekanteswaram Park in Kerala’s capital on September 27, 2005, suspecting them to be thieves. The CBI, which took up the case in 2007, said the officers then spread-eagled Udayakumar on a bench at the local police station, bound him and crushed his thighs with a pipe. The injuries were fatal.
The court also found that the three officers fudged station records.
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