Bihar-based businessman Harender Kumar Singh has said that he and his family are unhappy with the probe conducted by the Crime Branch of the State police into the mysterious death of his 23-year-old son Satnam Singh Mann in Thiruvananthapuram on August 4 last year.
At a press conference along with activists of the Thrissur-based Satnam Singh Defence Committee (SSDC) here on Monday, he demanded that a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) probe be ordered into the death of his son. “We feel that the State police probe has resulted in wrong people being figured as accused in the case.”
Satnam Singh, a law student at Lucknow, was arrested from the Mata Amritanandamayi Math, near here, on August 1 on the charge of allegedly attempting to attack the Mata while she was giving darshan to devotees. Satnam, allegedly in a state of frenzy, rushed to the podium where the Mata was seated. He was overpowered by devotees and handed over to the Karunagapally police. Satnam was produced before a local magistrate court and remanded in the district jail here on August 2. The same day he was transferred to the State Mental Health Centre (SMHC) at Peroorkada in Thiruvananthapuram and put in a cell since the jail authorities said he had shown signs of mental uneasiness.
On the night of August 4 when he suffered external injuries following a scuffle with some cellmates, he was admitted to the Thiruvananthapuram medical college hospital in a critical condition. Soon, the hospital authorities declared him dead. Mr. Singh said that as of now six persons figure as accused in the case. Two of them are SMHC staff and four others are patients at the hospital.
One of the accused later committed suicide. “The family members believe that all the six are not the real culprits in the case, since we feel that the SMHC incident is not the cause of death.” He said that based on scientific conclusions, “for which there is proof,” the family members do not believe that it was the external injuries sustained at the SMHC which caused Satnam’s death.
Much before being admitted to the SMHC, Satnam had sustained serious internal injuries, possibly brain damage. These injuries should have been sustained either at the math, or at the Karunagapally police station, or at the Kollam district jail.
SSDC general convener K.M. Baby said that neither the math, the Karunagapally police nor the Kollam district jail figures in the case. Out of 82 witnesses listed, there is none from the math. Mr. Singh said that the Crime Branch had not even recorded his statement.
