The State government on Thursday handed over a compensation of ₹10 lakh to Varapuzha custodial torture victim S.R. Sreejith’s family and appointed his wife as a ‘clerk’ at the North Paravur taluk office.
District Collector Muhammed Y. Safirullah visited the house of the victim at Devaswompadom on Thursday to hand over the compensation cheque and the appointment letter. Two cheques in the name of Shyamala (Sreejith’s mother) and Akhila (wife), each with face value of ₹3.33 lakh and one in the name of the victim’s daughter Aryananda (₹3.34 lakh) were handed over.
Akhila has been appointed in the post of village assistant (clerk) at the Paravur taluk office and will have to join duty in 15 days. Sreejith, 26, was wrongly taken into custody on April 6 night in a case of house attack and was allegedly subjected to custodial torture. He died while undergoing treatment.
DSP may be grilled again
Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case may once again interrogate Deputy Superintendent of Police K.B. Prafulla Chandran. Official sources said during interrogation the other day, A.V. George, former District Police Chief, Ernakulam Rural, had handed over a copy of the report on the status of the Varapuzha house attack case. Mr. Chandran told interrogators that the report was prepared based on the status report given by the then Circle Inspector Crispin Sam.
Based on this, the SIT interrogated Mr. Sam at the Kalamassery Armed Police Reserve camp for several hours on Wednesday. The investigators are now verifying whether Mr. George had forced the subordinate officers to fabricate documents to arraign Sreejith as an accused in the case. They confirmed that the now defunct Rural Tiger Force officers, who had taken Sreejith into custody, went to the youth’s residence in plain clothes.
