Two stories which have been reported in the news in the past two weeks should be a matter of great concern for all of us in India. The first is that of Bashir Ahmed. The second is that of Jayaraj and his son Benix.
On 1 July, a heart-wrenching picture showing a three-year-old child sitting on his grandfather’s dead body in Sopore town of Kashmir has triggered a nationwide furore. There are two different versions of the incident. The government version is that the deceased man named Bashir Ahmad died in cross-firing, which started when militants who were hiding in a mosque started shooting Indian troops. The police claim that they rescued Bashir’s grandson. That claim, however, is refuted by Bashir Ahmed’s family who alleged that the security forces killed the 65-year-old civilian. Though the veracity of these claims is hard to verify at this point in time, the truth is an innocent civilian was killed.
Similarly, a fortnight ago, in the South Indian city of Tuticorin (Thoothukudi), Tamil Nadu, the police tortured, sodomised and murdered two civilians – Jayaraj and his son Benix. Initially, the police version was that Jayaraj and Benix were arrested for violating lockdown norms.” However, Jayaraj and Benix’s relatives accused the police of brutally murdering the father-son duo. And as the news of Jayaraj and Benix’s death came out, people started speaking up. Initially, the police officers who perpetrated the crime were merely suspended and transferred from their roles. None of them was investigated for murder. But when public pressure started mounting, backed by evidence from CCTV footage, the Madras High Court asked the CB-CID to probe the case. Now, with the matter being transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, several police officers who were involved in the crime have been arrested for murder.
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