The Madras High Court on Friday asked the father of one of the 13 people shot dead during this week’s Thoothukudi police firing to wait till Thursday (May 31) to receive the body of the deceased, since the court wanted to ascertain whether the post-mortem had been performed in accordance with the Supreme Court’s guidelines.
A Division Bench of Justices T. Ravindran and P. Velmurugan told the counsel for S. Balaiah, 67, father of B. Shanmugam, a MBA graduate who was killed during Tuesday’s violence, that the bodies of the 13 victims could be handed over to their families only after the court was satisfied that the post-mortem had been conducted properly.
Pointing out that the officials expressed their inability to hand over the body to him due to interim orders passed by the court, the petitioner said they also obtained a letter from him to show to the court while seeking modification of the interim order, and thereafter hand over the body to the family.
“In my grief, I did not even read the letter completely but affixed my signature... I understand that the letter indicates that my son also participated in the agitation against Sterlite on May 22, 2018. I submit that to the best of my knowledge, my son was not involved in any protest or agitation but was a victim of police firing only by reason of being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” the petitioner added.
