A chilling custodial death that occurred 32 years ago at the Kammapuram police station in Vridhachalam, South Arcot District (present-day Cuddalore), has disturbing parallels with the recent illegal detention and murder of Ajith Kumar, a temple security guard, in Sivaganga district.
In March 1993, Kadirvel Padayachi, a locally influential man, lodged a complaint at the Kammapuram station alleging theft of 43 sovereigns of jewellery from his house. He claimed some members of the Kuravar community from a nearby village were spotted in the area the previous night.
Acting on the complaint, Sub Inspector Anthonisami and five policemen visited the house of Rajakannu, an agricultural labourer from the Kuravar community on March 20. Rajakannu was not at home, so they detained his wife Parvathy, two of their children — Mariappan (25) and Ravi (13)—and his brother-in-law Rathnam (55), and brought them to the station. All four were beaten with lathis.
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When Rajakannu learnt of their detention, he rushed to the station around noon on March 21. The police detained him and released the others.
The next day, when Parvathy returned with food, she found her husband stripped, tied to a window bar and being beaten. He collapsed during the assault, but the police continued caning him. “When I questioned them, I was again beaten and couldn’t even breathe,” she later recalled in court.
As his condition deteriorated, a homeopathy doctor was summoned. He administered an injection and applied ointment to Rajakannu’s wounds. After the doctor left, the police resumed the torture. They later instructed Parvathy to leave.
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Around 6 p.m., Parvathy returned to her village, only to hear from locals that police had come by earlier and claimed Rajakannu had escaped from custody.
Fearing the worst, Parvathy, with the help of local activists, sent telegrams (used in the pre-email days) to the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. She alleged that the police had killed her husband and disposed of his body to cover up the crime.
For a month, Rajakannu remained missing.
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With the help of her lawyer K. Chandru — who later became a judge of the Madras High Court — Parvathy filed a habeas corpus petition seeking Rajakannu’s production in court.
The police maintained that he had escaped, and a “man missing” case was registered. But the court chose to probe further. During CB-CID’s probe, IPS officer B. Perumalsamy who was heading the agency, stumbled upon a case at the Meensurutty police station in neighbouring Tiruchi district — around 40 km away — where an unidentified male body had been found near a temple some weeks earlier.
The body had been photographed before a post-mortem was conducted. The autopsy revealed multiple injuries including fractured ribs. The doctor concluded that the death was caused by shock and haemorrhage, and that all injuries were ante-mortem. “External injuries 1 to 4 could have been caused by beating with lathi. The fracture of ribs may be due to fisting and kicking on the chest. External injuries 1 to 4 are simple while the fracture of the ribs is grievous. Death would have occurred 24 to 36 hours prior to autopsy,” the doctor noted.
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Photographs confirmed the body was Rajakannu’s. The Kammapuram police had fabricated the escape story, taken Rajakannu’s naked body and dumped it far from the crime scene to evade scrutiny.
“The identification of the dead body and the cause of death, the time of death and other circumstances together with the report submitted before us disclose offences punishable on various counts including under Section 302, I.P.C. and 302 read with Section 34, Sections 218 and 220, I.P.C. establish the place of occurrences as the Kammapuram Police Station and identify the offenders including the fourth respondent,” the High Court noted.
The acclaimed Tamil film Jai Bhim (2021) was based on Rajakannu’s life. While the film ends on a hopeful note, in reality, Rajakannu never returned.
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As the High Court observed in 1994: “This case is only one such example where indifference after the complaint was lodged, of the men in power and senior police officers and casual approach of the courts… cause severe blow to the truth… If such people… rise to the occasion and act promptly, real danger to the system and the polity can be avoided.”
Eventually, the policemen involved were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.
In an ironic parallel to the Ajith Kumar case, the missing jewels in Rajakannu’s case were never traced.
