With their backs to the wall following the Kunnamkulam custodial torture, the Kerala police have gone to great lengths to mine the case history to portray Youth Congress leader V S Sujith as an infamous felon. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who was game for a lengthy debate on the issue in the assembly, also released details of 11 cases against Sujith. Four cops were suspended recently after shocking visuals of police brutality against Sujith at Kunnamkulam police station surfaced recently. The opposition has demanded dismissal of these officials from service. 

Even before the case details were presented in the assembly, CPM leaders had begun attempts at unravelling Sujith's criminal past. Addressing a rally in Thrissur on Monday, CPM district secretary K V Abdul Khadar mockingly asked, "should he have been patted and served biriyani after he had attacked the police"? While reading out the lines from the FIR registered against Sujith, Khadar was also signalling the narrative the CPM had drafted for the victim of custodial torture.

Any doubt was dispelled by the CM in the assembly. The cases registered between 2018 and 2024 were presented. It didn't matter that some of the case documents do not even name him, but only list him as 'one among the identifiable persons'. The other crimes against Sujith, who identifies himself as a public activist, include unlawful assembly, not maintaining social distancing during Covid, blocking public road, provocative sloganeering and so on. FIR of 11 cases were uploaded on the assembly website.

In two cases, the FIR shows a list of 13 and 11 accused for unlawful assembly. His name doesn't even figure on these lists. Another charge against him in 2024 was registered at Kunnamkulam station, where he was held under preventive custody after being found under suspicious circumstances. In another case registered in 2019, he was slapped with a case for disrupting peaceful life. 

Other charges were recorded under the Epidemic Diseases Prevention Act during the COVID-19 lockdown period when Sujith, along with others, staged public protests against the price hike. There is a charge of assault against him in a case registered in 2022. Apart from these, most of these cases were for unlawful assembly. He also faces a charge for breaking cop's lathi.

The most serious charges among all these cases were recorded in 2023 by Kunnamkulam police for obstructing arrest and for blocking the public servant from discharging duty. It was in this case that he was taken to the police station and subjected to torture. Sujith obtained the CCTV visuals from the police station through RTI application.