Kochi: The state government on Thursday handed over a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to S.R. Sreejith’s family and also appointed the victim’s wife as ‘clerk’ at the North Paravur taluk office in the Varappuzha custodial death case.
This amid charges that the “promptness” shown by the Left government to “reach out to the family” is aimed at dissuading them from seeking a CBI probe into the case.
District Collector Muhammed Y. Safirullah himself visited the house of the custodial death victim at Devaswompadom in Varappuzha on Thursday morning to hand over the compensation cheque and the appointment letter.
Two cheques in the name of Shyamala (Sreejith’s mother) and Akhila (wife), each with face value of Rs 3.33 lakhs and one in the name of the victim’s daughter Aryananda (Rs 3.34 lakh) were handed over by the collector.
Sreejith’s family though could not hold back their tears and were heard sobbing that nothing could compensate the loss of their son.
Akhila was appointed in the post of Clerk/ Village Assistant at the Paravur taluk office and will have to join for duty in 15 days. Earlier, she had expressed desire for a job at a nearby place so that she could get time to look after her daughter. Sshe thanked the government for providing the same.
Sreejith was wrongly taken into custody in a mistaken identity case on the night of April 6 in a case of house attack and was allegedly subjected to custodial torture. He later died while undergoing treatment on April 9.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch sleuths are now probing whether former Ernakulam Rural Superintendent A.V. George had forced his subordinate officers to fabricate documents to arraign Sreejith as an accused in the case.
During his interrogation the other day, A.V. George had handed over to the Special Investigation Team a copy of the report
with regard to the status of the Varappuzha house attack case. He told the SIT that the same was prepared by Deputy Superintendent of police K.B. Parfulla Chandran. The latter, on his part, said the same was prepared based on the status report given by the then Circle Inspector Crispin Sam.
Crispin Sam was subjected to interrogation at the Kalamassery Armed police Reserve camp for several hours on Wednesday.
