‘CBI failed’: Kerala HC acquits all cops in Udayakumar custodial death case

THE Kerala High Court acquitted all accused police officers in the sensational 2005 Udayakumar custodial death case on Wednesday, 27 August.

A division bench of Justices Raja Vijayaraghavan and KV Jayakumar observed that the CBI had “failed in its investigation,” leading to the acquittal of all surviving accused. The death sentence that a CBI court had awarded to the first and second accused, too, has been quashed.

The court’s decision came while considering appeals filed by the policemen against the 2018 verdict of the Thiruvananthapuram Special CBI Court, which had sentenced two officers to death and convicted several others.

A police station turns notorious

Udayakumar, 28, a resident of Killipalam in Thiruvananthapuram, was taken into custody on 27 September 2005 from Sreekanteswaram Park along with another man, Suresh Kumar, allegedly a petty criminal.

Officers found ₹4,000 in Udayakumar’s possession and suspected theft.

According to the CBI chargesheet, he was later tied to a bench inside the Fort Police Station and brutally beaten with an iron pipe, causing rupture of blood vessels in his thighs. He collapsed in custody and was declared “dead on arrival” at a hospital the same night.

The case was initially investigated by the local police and the Crime Branch before being handed over to the CBI in 2008 following a petition by Udayakumar’s mother, Prabhavathiamma, who alleged attempts to sabotage the probe.

After a protracted legal battle, the CBI court in 2018 sentenced policemen K Jithakumar and SV Sreekumar to death, while convicting other senior officers of conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

Sreekumar and another accused, ASI KV Soman, died during the course of the trial.

Mother vows to continue fight

Reacting to Wednesday’s acquittal, an inconsolable Prabhavathiamma told reporters that the judiciary had “no heart.” She alleged that unseen forces had worked to exonerate the accused.

“There were 22 wounds on my son’s thighs. After seeing all this, how can the court say they are innocent?” she asked, vowing to continue her fight for justice.

The verdict came 20 years after Udayakumar’s death, leaving his family devastated and reopening questions on accountability in custodial deaths.