TN custodial death of remand prisoner: Relatives accept body after multi-day protest

Nagercoil (Tamil Nadu), Jul 17 (PTI) The family of S Sabari Varman, a remand prisoner who died in the sub-jail here, accepted his body after multi-day protest on Friday, police said. They mellowed down after independent human rights activists verified the integrity of the autopsy, and accepted the body of Varman, a disabled shop-keeper, who died on July 13. Since his death, his family members have been staging a protest demanding a second postmortem and an independent probe as they suspected foul play in his death inside the prison. However, they launched a fresh protest at Ethankadu junction here today demanding the state government to immediately disburse welfare assistance to the affected family. A day after the death of Sabari Varman, 35, the shopkeeper from Ethankadu in Nagercoil, allegedly in judicial custody, the police arrested three prison staff, including a chief warden and placed them under suspension after a postmortem report indicated 19 injuries on the victim's body, including his elbows, forearms, knees and legs. A case has been registered against eight co-inmates at the prison in connection with the disabled shopkeeper's death, a senior police official said and added that the prison staff were arrested based on CCTV footage and eyewitness accounts. The co-inmates had assaulted Sabari Varman in his cell at around 12 midnight on July 13 for making loud noise, and thereafter the prison staff intervened and allegedly beat up the victim, the official said. The incident triggered a backlash from various political parties, which faulted the police and government over the handling of the issue. Police sources said that the human rights actists and forensic experts from the Joint Action Against Custodial Torture had reviewed the compiled video footages of the post-mortem, and confirmed 19 documented injuries on Varman’s body, thus confirming the autopsy report. Immediately after receiving the body, Sabari Varman’s family members placed the body in the mortuary van and blocked the traffic pressing the authorities with the fresh demand, a police official said. According to the police official, state ministers S Rajesh Kumar and Srinath, accompanied by the Kanyakumari district officials visited the affected family and offered to provide a compensation of Rs 10 lakh, a temporary government job to Varman’s wife and 1.75 cents land. However, the family members demanded immediate sanctioning of the relief sum, the official said. PTI JSP JSP ROH