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The police had taken Gopi into custody under accusations of theft. The police case was that Gopi had stabbed himself with the broken end of the fluorescent lamp in the police cell. They said the four-foot long lamp was kept at the police station to draw lines and columns in record sheets maintained at the police station.
Thankappan did not believe any of these stories. After obtaining his son's body from the police, he constructed a huge cement tank outside his hut. He filled the tank with preservatives and kept his son's body in the tank. He bought two huge dogs to keep a watch on the body so no one would remove it from the tank. He kept the body like this for 10 years, till Aug. 21, 1999.
George Pulikuthiyil, then a young Carmelite priest and a lawyer, came to know about this case and helped Thankappan approach the court. The two hoped to pressure the police or any government agency to investigate Gopi's death, convinced that the Cherthala police were responsible for it.
They approached the High Court of Kerala and also filed petitions with several government agencies. The case as directed by the High Court was investigated by the State Crime Branch and then by the director general of police, but Thankappan was not satisfied by these investigations. He again approached the High Court asking for a direction from the court to entrust the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
While considering this application the court awarded compensation to be paid to Thankappan. In 1997, the court also directed to charge-sheet the police officers, Circle Inspector Prabhakaran and Police Sub-Inspector A. Sreekandan Nair, for illegally detaining Gopi. It took three more years for the police officers to be brought before the Magistrate Court.
The police had detained Gopi in 1988 when Thankappan and Gopi went to the Cherthala Police Station to give statements regarding a theft case the police were then investigating. The police allowed Thankappan to leave, but detained Gopi for further questioning. Within hours Gopi died in police custody.
While the investigation into Gopi's death is still continuing, the Cherthala Judicial Magistrate sentenced the two police officers to imprisonment on charges of illegal detention a few weeks ago. It took more than seven years for the court to find the police officers guilty. In the meantime Thankappan passed away in 2004.
The police officers who are now sentenced to imprisonment also retired from service long ago. The criminal charges against them did not hinder their promotions, however. Both had become deputy superintendents of police by the time they retired.
It would be an overstatement to say that justice had finally caught up with the culprits. The investigation into Gopi's death is still nowhere. Now that Thankappan is no more, the chances are the investigation will also die a “natural death.”
In India cases like this are common. Thankappan's resolve to keep his son's dead body might not be common, but it was not the only such case. In a similar case from West Bengal the parents of Masumi Ari, a young woman who was killed by her in-laws, also kept her body in a similar manner.
Masumi's parents were fisherfolk and extremely poor. The only way they knew to preserve Masumi's body was like preserving fish. They kept the body for several years. In fact keeping Masumi's body like that helped the case to a certain extent. The third autopsy conducted on the preserved body changed the course of the case. Several injuries that were not documented in the first and second autopsy were brought to light in the third examination. The original police charge of suicide was later confirmed to be murder, but it took about eight years.
These two cases are examples that illuminate the current state of the Indian criminal justice system. When a crime is committed, the investigating agency does not investigate the crime properly. A shoddy investigation ends in an easy acquittal of the accused, or the perpetrator may never even be identified.
In Gopi's case it was apparent that the police were responsible for his death. So it is natural that they did not want the truth to be uncovered. In Masumi's case, the accused in-laws were very close to the local police. They were rich, and bribed the police officers to turn a case of murder into a suicide.
In India the state of affairs of the criminal justice system is such that it caters to criminals, not justice. It is easy for any person to literally buy out the system so that criminals walk free. Unfortunately only a limited few can afford to do this. Those who wish to fight this must have a resolve stronger than steel like Thankappan or Masumi's parents. To get justice for their dead children the parents need to run between the court and police stations for years, often decades.
There is no reason the Indian justice system should have downgraded itself to this state. The primary reason for this is the failure of the police officers and the deep-rooted corruption within the system, which has long gone unchallenged. Indians are fed up with their police. We deserve better.
