The police have recorded the arrest of two persons, P.P. Abdul Kareem and K. Hussain, hailing from Mukkali village bordering Kadukumanna and took five others into custody for interrogation in connection with the death of 27-year-old tribal youth A. Madhu of Kadukumanna hamlet in Attappady. The youth was beaten to death after a mob accused him of shop lifting.
According to Inspector General (Thrissur zone) M.R. Ajith Kumar, who is overseeing the investigation, search is on for eight others who allegedly formed part of the mob, which tracked Madhu down on Thursday evening before tying him up and thrashed for several hours. The mob had beaten up Madhu badly before handing him over to local police. Some of the assaulters even took selfies with the badly injured tribal youth, who was mentally challenged and living inside deep forests as a loner.
SC/ST Minister A.K. Balan, who met mediapersons in Thrissur on the sidelines of ongoing CPI(M) State conference, informed that the government had ordered a magisterial probe into the brutal incident. Mannarkkad Judicial First Class Magistrate will conduct the probe, he said. Mr. Balan said he would visit Kadukumanna on Saturday to meet Madhu’s family and promised financial compensation to his mother and sister. The National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, Kerala State Human Rights Commission and Kerala State Commission for Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes have demanded detailed reports from the police over the incident.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan strongly condemned the incident and said efforts were on to avoid recurring of such incidents in future.
Palakkad District Police Superintendent Pratheesh Kumar said all the accused would be arrested by Saturday and stringent charges would be slapped on them after obtaining postmortem report. There was no convincing evidence to prove that Madhu had engaged in shop lifting, said the officer.
