By Matters India Reporter
Patna, June 39, 2020: A Jesuit college in Patna, eastern India, has organized an online protest against the death of a father and son in police custody in Tamil Nadu, southern India.
Addressing the participants, Congregation of Jesus Sister Cynthia Mathew, an NGO representative at the United Nations, termed the incident as “gross violation of human rights” and “blatant misuse of power” by policemen.
Police in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi (formerly Tuticorin) on June 19 arrested P Jayaraj for allegedly violating lockdown norms. His 31-year-old son J Bennix was taken into custody when he objected the police beating his father.
The police allegedly brutalized them at Sathankulam town police station in Thoothukudi district. They were admitted to a hospital on June 22 and Bennix died the same evening. Jayaraj succumbed to his injuries the following day.
Sister Mathew, who is engaged in advocacy for women, Dalits and Adivasis at the UN, pointed out that as many as 1,731 people had died in police custody in India in 2019. The nun, who also practices law at Patna High Court and Buxar district court, regretted that India was yet to ratify the UN Convention against Torture.
The virtual protest was organized on June 29 by the National Service Scheme unit of Patna’s St Xavier’s College of Management and Technology Patna.
Staff, students and rights activists joined the protest.
Ashish Ranjan, national convener of National Alliance of People’s Movements and secretary of Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, blamed several democratic institutions in the country for failing Jayaraj and his son.
“They did not commit any crime. They were only guilty of violating the Covid-19 lockdown, which is a bailable offence,” said the former student of IIT-Kharagpur and Florida International University, Miami.
Ranjan, who now lives in Araria, drew a parallel between the Tamil Nadu incident and the killing of George Floyd by the police in the US in May that sparked worldwide outrage. He then urged the students to “rise now to protect human rights of ordinary citizens, law of the country and prevent police atrocities.” He also cited several cases of police brutalities, including blinding of prisoners in Bihar’s Bhagalpur.
In a series of incidents in 1979 and 1980, police in Bhagalpur, some 275 km southeast of Patna, blinded 31 undertrial prisoners by pouring acid into their eyes. The incident became infamous as the Bhagalpur blindings.
At the Patna virtual protest, college students Aditya Sagar, Ashish Kumar, Dipu Denis and Arpita Sinha displayed placards and posters seeking justice for the victims and that said, “More than machinery, we need humanity.”
Several student described the guilty policemen as “criminals in uniform and demanded highlight the case until justice is done.
“We, as students, can do a lot to bring a change,” one of them said and urged his college mates to draw lesson from the struggle of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Bidiyanand Choudhary, a professor, called upon the students to “stand and speak up” against police atrocities.
Speaking on the occasion, college principal Jesuit Father T Nishaant said some sections of society had been oppressed for centuries. “They still don’t have the power to protest,” he said, insisted that “every life matters.”
NSS coordinator Ajay Kumar, a professor, condemned the incident and demanded action against the erring police officers. He also thanked the participants for raising their voice against “bare terrorism” by men in uniform.