After win in custodial torture case, Youth Congress leader seals it with a wedding ring

Congress leaders, including MP Shafi Parambil, former MPs T N Prathapan and V M Sudheeran, and former MLA Anil Akkara, among others, attended the wedding. A week earlier, Sujith had got a gold ring as his wedding gift from AICC general-secretary K C Venugopal and a gold chain from Joseph Tajet, the Congress’s Thrissur district committee chief.

Sujith’s long-drawn-out legal battle over two years — during which he used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to force the police to hand over the CCTV footage from the night of his assault — has led to similar cases of excesses becoming public.

On April 5, 2023, Sujith was picked up from Kanippayyur village in Kunnamkulam, allegedly after he intervened when the Kunnamkulam police attempted to take his friends into custody following a tip-off regarding a group consuming alcohol at a public place. Sujith was taken to the Kunnamkulam police station in a jeep and allegedly assaulted by the personnel led by inspector Nuhman.

Sujith says, “Since the police had accused me of consuming alcohol, I was taken for a blood alcohol test, which proved that I was sober. Then, I was taken to the magistrate’s court, where I submitted a written complaint on my custodial torture. That was the beginning of my fight for justice.”

Granted bail, Sujith was admitted to a hospital for four days after a medical examination at the court’s behest revealed signs of assault. Following his discharge from the hospital, he immediately filed a complaint against his alleged custodial torture with the offices of the Chief Minister, the Kerala police chief and the State Human Rights Commission.

Sujith said he also moved an RTI application with the Kunnamkulam police station’s Public Information Officer, seeking the CCTV footage from April 5, 2023. “Exactly 30 days later, I got a reply that the footage cannot be shared due to the presence of a POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) complainant at the station. I didn’t recall seeing such a complainant when I was taken to the station (on April 5, 2023),’’ he says.

Realising that the police were just dragging their feet on handing over the footage, he filed an appeal with the city police commissioner’s office. Though his appeal was turned down on the same grounds, the city police launched a probe, led by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) K C Sethu, into his torture complaint.

The probe report, based on the examination of the CCTV footage, confirmed that the personnel had assaulted Sujith at the station and that he was taken to another room without any CCTV camera.

Following this, Sujith petitioned the commissioner for the preservation of the footage, which was handed over by the telecommunication cell to the city police’s cyber cell.

In the meantime, Sujith also moved a private assault complaint against the four accused personnel in the Magistrate court. His complaint listed as witnesses the government doctor who had issued the medical certificate following the April 5, 2023, incident and the ACP who had probed his complaint.

“Despite several reminders, the ACP failed to appear in court for examination as a witness. He appeared only over one year later, after an arrest warrant was issued against him,” says A M Nideesh, the Youth Congress president for the Kunnamkulam Assembly constituency.

Meanwhile, Sujith’s appeal seeking the CCTV footage was rejected by the city police’s first appellate authority. Challenging the police’s rejection of his petitions under the RTI Act, he filed a plea before the State Information Commission.

Summoned by the Commission, the police informed the authority that the footage concerned was lost during an update of the recording system implemented in police stations across the state. However, State Information Commissioner (SIC) K M Dileep ordered the retrieval of the relevant portions of the footage — after editing out the visuals pertaining to the POCSO complainant — and handing it over to Sujith. He said the police failed to hand over the footage.

Party colleague Nideesh, who stood by Sujith, says, “Our initial plan was to focus on the proceedings in the Magistrate court, where Sujith’s private complaint was being heard. However, we decided to use the RTI route once again.”

Once again, Sujith approached the Information Officer at the Commissionerate, demanding a copy of the preserved CCTV footage.

This time, his plea was rejected on the grounds that at the time of handing over the footage to the cyber cell, the police telecommunication cell had failed to include the video’s hash value (a unique digital fingerprint that helps verify if a video has been altered or tampered with). Sujith says, “They said they could not verify if the video file had been altered.’’

Having received the same response from the Commissionerate’s appellate authority, Sujith moved the SIC once again. During a hearing held in Thrissur on August 5 this year, SIC Sonichan P Joseph ordered the police to hand over a copy of the CCTV footage to Sujith within 15 days.

The order said, “The visuals preserved as part of the system migration can be given as per Section 10 (1) (which allows for partial disclosure of information) of the Right to Information Act.’’

On 12 the day of the order, the police finally handed over the CCTV footage to Sujith. Nideesh says, “We had to travel over a dozen times to Thiruvananthapuram during our fight to get a copy of the CCTV footage. Lawyers affiliated to the party helped us all along.”

Under fire after the footage went public, the government suspended four police personnel, including the then inspector. In a sign of deepening trouble for the Kerala government, the State Human Rights Commission had initiated a suo motu case in the matter. Though Sujith had complained to the rights panel in 2023, no action was taken on his complaint then.

Sujith said he has moved a petition to arraign police driver Suhair as an accused in his private complaint pending before the Magistrate Court. Sujith says, “Though the police driver does not appear in the CCTV footage, he was a part of the team that assaulted me.”

Varghese Chowvannur, a member of Congress’s Thrissur district executive committee, adds, “Our fight is not yet over. This legal battle will be over only when the policemen are dismissed from the force.”