How many more Ajith Kumars?

The custodial death of 27-year-old B. Ajith Kumar in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu bears chilling similarities to what police officer Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues from the Minneapolis (Minnesota) police department did to George Floyd in 2020. Floyd died of suffocation when the officer forcefully kneeled on his neck, exerting extreme pressure.

Ajith Kumar of Madappuram near Thiruppuvanam in the Sivagangai district was subjected to the same kind of cruelty by the personnel of the special crime squad attached to the Manamadurai police sub-division. The post-mortem report submitted to the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court and available with Frontline reveals the third-degree torture that Ajith Kumar was put through. He had died of multiple external and internal injuries, especially in the neck, chest, skull and abdomen, where multiple haemorrhages were noted.

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“It is an extrajudicial killing. The tragic irony was that there was neither a formal complaint nor an FIR in this case. It has been a flagrant violation of all laws of the country from the day Ajith was illegally detained  till his death,” said Henri Tiphagne of People’s Watch, a human rights organisation and one of the petitioners.

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