Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday termed the custodial death of Thamir Jiffri at Tanur, Malappuram, as an 'isolated incident'.
He said the Kerala Police, in general, have always demonstrated the 'utmost restraint' and had not turned into 'death squads' like the police forces in other states like Chattisgarh.
The chief minister was responding to an adjournment motion moved by Muslim League MLA M Shamsudheen on the issue in the Assembly. Pinarayi said the case had been handed over to the CBI.
However, he turned down the UDF demand for the removal of Sujith Das S as Malappuram district police chief.
Nonetheless, Pinarayi said the government would examine whether the district police chief had acted in a partisan and inappropriate fashion as alleged by the opposition.
Shamsudheen had argued that the police chief, as the latter's favourite officers are involved in the case, could withhold information from the CBI.
The chief minister suggested that this was the CBI's headache.
"If attempts are made to protect the accused, the CBI should show the investigative acumen to overcome such difficulties," Pinarayi said.
Shamsudheen had said that the officers involved in the custodial torture would not have acted without the knowledge of the district police chief.
"He is protecting them and, therefore, should be suspended," he said. Later League leader P K Kunhalikutty, too, sought the suspension of Sujith.
The opposition had alleged Jiffri was picked up from his quarters at Chelari by the District Anti-Narcotic Special Action Force (DANSAF), taken to a secret camp, tortured, and then handed over to the Tanur police.
However, the police FIR has recorded that Jiffri was arrested from under the Tanur Railway Overbridge.
The FIR seemed a bit off the mark in other ways too. The Opposition pointed out that the FIR filed at 7.03 am on August 1 had named Jiffri as the first accused. Fact is, Jiffri had by then been dead for more than two hours. Police records show Jiffri died at 4.30 a.m.
Shamsudheen, quoting from the postmortem report, said that the 21 wounds found on Jiffri's body was caused by 'force contact with handcuff', and 'forced beating with blunt weapon and cylindrical weapon'.
Opposition Leader V D Satheesan seemed provoked by the chief minister's claim that there were no police encounter deaths in Kerala. "Didn't your police gun down people in places like Wayanad calling them Maoists," he said. "Police encounters in Chattisgarh is not a surprise as state is the biggest target of Maoist attacks. There is no such menace in Kerala and still we had fake encounter deaths," he said.
The Opposition Leader was also amused by the chief minister's "isolated incident" description for the Tanur custodial death. "I think it is high time that we possessed a special counting machine to count the overwhelming number of 'isolated incidents' in Kerala," Satheesan said.
He also reeled out incidents to puncture the chief minister's claim that his police had always shown great restraint. "A man who was slapped and mercilessly tortured in custody had died recently. His only crime was that he stopped his vehicle some 10 metres away from a policeman. Have you taken any action," Satheesan asked. "Sajeevan of Vadakara, Sreejith of Varappuzha, Rajkumar of Idukki, Shameer and Vinayakan of Thrissur... the list of men your police had traumatised and killed is endless," he said.
Satheesan further trivialised the way the police functioned. "Wasn't it your police that tortured and forced a woman to confess that she had killed and buried her husband? And then, didn't they triumphantly pose for photographs with her? The very next day the husband made an entry," the Opposition Leader said. "Is there a limit to the shamelessness of your police," he added.
