Police officials responsible for custodial death of 49-year- old prisoner to be dismissed

The Kerala government onMonday decided to dismiss from service the police officialsresponsible for the custodial death of a 49-year-old remandprisoner at a police station in Idukki district in July 2019.

A special cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan, took the decision, based on the report ofthe judicial commission which probed the custodial death.

''The cabinet has decided to accept the findings andrecommendations of the Justice Narayana Kurup Commission.

This includes the recommendation of dismissal of policeofficials responsible for the custodial death,'' the stategovernment said in a release.

In January this year, the commission had submitted a 150page report to the government.

The deceased, K Rajkumar, was taken into custody on June12, 2019 by police at Nedumkandam in connection with afinancial fraud case and was produced before a magistrate onJune 16.

However, he was allegedly tortured for the next four days,following which he was admitted to the Peermade Talukhospital, where he died on June 21.

After a public outcry, the state government appointed thejudicial commission to look into various aspects related tothe custodial death,including the circumstances leading to it.

Justice Kurup had ordered exhuming of the body and a re-postmortem as he found several lapses in the first autopsyreport, one of which was that the internal organs of thedeceased had not been sent for expert examination.

The second autopsy report had revealed new injuries.

The CBI, which was probing the case,filed the chargesheetin the case earlier this month before the Chief JudicialMagistrate court at Kochi, naming nine police officers.

The probe agency has named a sub-inspector, two assistantsub-inspectors, two police drivers, a home guard and threecivil police officers.

The CBI has charged them under various provisions of theIndian Penal Code, including Sections 302 (murder), 343(wrongful confinement), 348 (wrongful confinement forextortion), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), among others.