Chennai: The death of a 25-year-old policeman, the sole breadwinner of his family, after he fell from a coconut tree inside the premises of the police computer communication centre in Santhome on Friday, has opened a can of worms in the department after his friends and family members revealed that Sathish Kumar had climbed the tree on the instructions of an inspector who wanted to pluck the coconuts from the trees on the government campus for his own use.
“He was specifically asked by an inspector in the core group on Thursday night to be ready for plucking coconuts from the coconut trees in the police computer communication centre on SantÂhome high road after he finished night duty at the Secretariat.
When the inspector enquired if anybody could help him to pluck the coconuts, Sathish had volunteered because he had known the inspector when he was doing guard duty at the core lab situated near the PCC building,” police sources said.
Sathish Kumar, hailing from a village near Madurai, was the only earning member in his family which included his physically challenged father and two sisters.
“His parents, who were in Chennai along with his sisters, were told unofficially by some officers that they should not rake up the issue. If the family members kept their mouth shut, one sister could get a job,” a friend of Sathish Kumar from Madurai told this newspaper on Sunday.
Those who worked with Sathish Kumar felt that the inspector who had ‘assigned’ the job of plucking coconuts to the policeman should have the courage to own up responsibility for his death.
“A family lost its breadwinner because an inspector wanted some coconuts from a tree growing on government premise,” said a constable who worked with Sathish Kumar.
