From Sathankulam to Sivaganga: When khaki turns red

MADURAI, THOOTHUKUDI, & TIRUCHY: Hey beat me up like I was an animal,” K Angalan reminisced his two-decade-old encounter with cops, voice trembling, and fear still lurking in his eyes. “They tied me like Jesus on the cross and lashed me from legs to spine.” He can barely forget how he was treated, abused with filthy language and told to confess to the crime by cops, who openly threatened to hurt his sister.

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Henri Tiphagne, a human rights activist and executive director of Human Rights NGO People’s Watch, sheds light on how the new recruit training teaches the police force how to circumvent or escape repercussions for torture, or how to “efficiently” inflict it. “The training needs to focus more on handling issues ethically. In the case of Ajithkumar, all those involved were aged between 30 and 40 years. They might have an average of 10 years’ experience in the field. Yet, they turned out to be brutal and were unresponsive to Ajithkumar’s inability to cope with his cries,” he said, stressing that while they might not inherently be bad people, there was a clear lack of oversight.

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