Thrissur: Governor P. Sathasivam has sought a report from the State Human Rights Commission at the earliest on the alleged lapses on the part of the commission in ordering an inquiry by police into the death of a 36-year-old woman and her one-and-a-half-year-old child. They were killed in a bike accident during a vehicle check by the highway police on the National Highway at Mannuthy in August 2015. The police allegedly flouted existing standing orders from the DGP on conducting vehicle inspection on roads. Nerkazhcha, an organisation of RTI activists had approached the Governor questioning the propriety of the SHRC to order the police who are facing allegation in the incident to conduct an investigation in the case.
According to them, an independent agency which is free from influence of the state police needs to investigate the matter. Even though the organisations including Nerkazhcha had produced ample evidence against the police for violating the rules by conducting vehicle check near a curve on the road without getting permission from senior officers, the then DGP T.P. Senkumar had strongly backed the highway police saying the husband of the woman was trying to evade police inspection as he was not wearing helmet and that led to the accident. P.B. Satheesh of Nerkazhcha said that both the police and the SHRC were not interested in conducting a proper inquiry even after it was conveyed to the SHRC during a sitting in Thrissur that there were eyewitness statement which his organisation collected stating that the man was wearing a helmet and the violation of rules by cops led to the accident and deaths.
