The death of a suspect on Thursday, after an alleged suicide attempt inside the Thumba police station, has trained the spotlight on the Thumba police again, albeit for the wrong reasons.
It was in January 2014 that the policemen here faced allegations of harassment in two cases — one after a three-member family of Radhakrishnan, who was an accused in an accident case, committed suicide, and the second, after two youngsters, Nidheesh and Sreejith, both accused in an assault case, were found dead on the railway tracks in an alleged suicide bid.
Now, a year later, after Shaji Elias of Poundukadavu died at the Government Medical College Hospital here, the Thumba police are facing questions over why a person, summoned to the police station as a suspect in a theft case, was detained, without recording his custody or arrest for over 36 hours, leading to an alleged suicide attempt by him and in the end, his death.
Relatives of Shaji have alleged that the police did not inform them immediately of the suicide attempt.
Shaji’s son Vishnu reportedly said he learnt about the incident only when he reached the station around 9 a.m., more than two hours after Shaji was taken to hospital.
‘No torture’
H. Venkatesh, City Police Commissioner, said there was no torture or harassment of the suspect at the police station, but why his arrest or custody was not recorded would be probed. The station house officer (SHO) had summoned him to the station, and if the SHO was busy on Monday, the next in-charge, the crime sub-inspector (Crime SI), should have recorded the custody or written a first information report after verifying the complaint with the suspect.
None of these was apparently done.
“If the SI was not there, the Crime SI could have verified with the suspect, and if there was nothing sufficient to record his custody or arrest, he should have been allowed to leave. There are various investigations on into the incident at different levels. We are waiting for the reports,” he said.
Meanwhile, police sources said Shaji had reportedly shown withdrawal symptoms from alcohol addiction and that there were no fatal injuries caused by the suicide attempt. However, the exact cause of death would be known once the autopsy report was available.
