The relatives of Varappuzha custodial torture victim S.R. Sreejith on Tuesday identified the three policemen who had taken the youth into custody.
Official sources said Akhila, the widow of Sreejith, identified the accused as Jithin Raj, Sumesh, and Santosh Kumar during an identification parade held at the District Jail at Kakkanad. The accused policemen, who belonged to the now defunct Rural Tiger Force (RTF), were paraded together with 14 others.
Sreejith’s younger brother Sajith, his mother Shyamala, and Ajith, a neighbour, also identified the accused. The parade, held in the presence of Aluva Magistrate Reno Francis Xavier, lasted more than an hour.
All the four accused in the case, including Varappuzha sub inspector G.S. Deepak, have been lodged in the same prison in judicial custody.
The identification of the accused policemen was held five days after a video-clipping showing them had leaked out through social media.
In the footage, they had claimed that they had been made scapegoats and requested the Chief Minister and the State Police Chief to intervene in the matter.
Officials said the medical board constituted to ascertain the actual cause of Sreejith’s death is expected to hand over its final report in the next couple of days. The port mortem report had attributed Sreejith’s death to blunt trauma to the abdomen and related complications.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch (CB) team probing the attack on the house of Vasudevan and his subsequent suicide is yet to arrest the remaining accused in the case.
The first, second, third and sixth accused, identified as Vipin, Vinju, Thulasidas, and Ajith respectively, have been absconding since April 6. In what might further tighten the noose over the local policemen, some co-accused in the house attack case told the media that they had been subjected to brutal assault at the station by the sub inspector for several hours. Earlier, the CB had found that at least seven of the nine arrested by the Varappuzha police were not present at the spot during the attack on Vasudevan’s house.
