The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Saturday directed all the parties involved in the
Avaniapuram custodial death case to file their counter affidavits.
The court had taken up the matter suo motu after it was alleged the father of the victim was
coerced to withdraw his petition seeking a CBI probe into the incident that took place in 2019.
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People’s Watch has written to the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission seeking appropriate action against the erring policemen involved in the Sattankulam custodial torture and death case.
In a letter, its Executive Director Henri Tiphagne said that action should be initiated against the Judicial Magistrate, Sattankulam, and the police for the illegal manner in which the two traders, Jayaraj and Bennix, were remanded.
Rights activists have questioned why the CB-CID did not examine senior police officials, whose alleged complicity in the firing on anti-Sterlite protesters in Thoothukudi was exposed by Mugilan hours before his mysterious disappearance.
Pointing out that over 200 people were examined by the investigating agency, the activist’s son Kaar Muhilan said all those questioned by the police were either his family’s friends or well-wishers.
‘Proceedings initiated against 100 people who protested against Sterlite’
The Thoothukudi district administration and the police have initiated proceedings against at least 100 people who took part in the protests against Sterlite Copper, said People’s Watch, a human rights organisation, in Madurai on Monday.
Many of the victims of police firing during the anti-Sterlite protests in Thoothukudi last May have not been adequately compensated, People’s Watch, a human rights organisation, has said.
The Madras High Court on Monday granted the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) time till March 18 to trace the anti-Sterlite activist T. Mugilan alias Shanmugam. The time was granted at the instance of the prosecution which claimed to have examined 148 witnesses so far.
He is said to have gone missing after a press meet on the Thoothukudi firing
Human Rights Defenders Alert - India (HRDA), an organisation that works to defend human rights activists facing threats, has appealed to the Chennai Police Commissioner to take immediate steps to trace environmental activist R.S. Mugilan, who is said to have been missing since Friday.
