It was India’s own ‘George Floyd moment’ as the recent custodial killings of a trader and his son by police in Sathankulam, a small town in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, sent shock waves throughout India and across the world. While the national and global outcry has resulted in charges of murder against four policemen, going by previous experience in such cases, there are grave doubts about whether justice will be really done or bring any lasting changes in the behaviour of police with ordinary citizens.
3. Though it faces no major civil unrest or insurgencies like Kashmir or the North-East, Tamil Nadu operates like a virtual police state, being among the few states in India that have used anti-terrorism laws such as TADA and POTA against mainstream opposition politicians.
Even by dismal standards that Indian police are known for, the gruesome details of torture that Jeyraj and his son Bennicks were subjected to has touched a raw nerve everywhere. For the ‘crime’ of keeping their small mobile phone shop open a few minutes past the lockdown deadline of 8 pm the duo were not just brutally assaulted inside a police station for hours, Bennicks was sodomized with a baton before being taken to a hospital after their health condition worsened. Both father and son died within a day of each other due to severe injuries.
The crime would have been hushed up, if not for Bennick’s sister Persis challenging the police account and the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court taking suo-moto cognizance of the case and ordering an inquiry. There was a denial of any wrongdoing initially, by both the police and the Tamil Nadu government, which subsequently ordered compensation to the family of the deceased.
Tamil Nadu has one of the oldest police forces in India, with the East India Company setting up a Board of Police to deal with ‘removal of public nuisance, & maintenance of public health and order’ as far back as 1770. The modern form of the state police has its roots in the Madras District Police Act XXIV of 1859, brought in by the British regime.
The colonial nature of the Tamil Nadu police has never really been challenged or reformed in the post-Independence period. Ignoring both the Indian Constitution as well as various judicial directives, the state police have been a law unto itself, arbitrarily wielding the ‘danda’, while also extracting a regular share of ‘Chanda’ from establishments both big and small.
The impunity with which police in the state operates is a result of how successive governments have used them, to settle scores against political rivals, suppress public protests, or simply terrorize citizens. Though it faces no major civil unrest or insurgencies like Kashmir or the North-East, Tamil Nadu operates like a virtual police state, being among the few states in India that have used anti-terrorism laws such as TADA and POTA against mainstream opposition politicians.
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