Rs 5 lakh compensation to kin of autodriver who died in

Thanks to the intervention of the Madras High Court, the next of kin of an autorickshaw driver will get a compensation of Rs five lakh over a year after he was picked up by Nagapattinam Police and tortured.
The state government today told the court that necessary sanction orders had been issued and the compensation would be handed over to the victim's kin within a week.
Government Pleader S T S Moorthy also told the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, that Inspector N.S. Rajendran of Nagoor police station was under suspension "for having exceeded his powers."

Autorickshaw driver Suresh died in the early hours of New Year Day in 2014, after he was picked up on December 31, 2013, and thrashed by police, a PIL had alleged.
Ossie Fernandes, co-convener for Campaign for Custodial Justice and Abolition of Torture, who filed the case bringing the custodial death to the court's notice, in his PIL said that Suresh and his friend Prasad were standing near their vehicles near Vanjur police checkpost on the New Year eve.
The police inspector directed them to park their vehicles elsewhere. Suresh protested and said he had parked the vehicle on the roadside and without disturbing the public.

Irked over his reply, the inspector hit Suresh, who in his attempt to ward of a slap, held on to the inspector's hands. On seeing their officer in tussle with an autorickshaw driver, other police personnel joined the fight and thrashed Suresh and took him into custody, according the petitioner.

Late that night, Suresh was taken to Nagapattinam government hospital with severe injuries. He died at around 6am on January 1, 2014. Suresh's wife and children aged 5 and 6 years were not allowed to meet him in the hospital and they were later informed that he died of 'cardiac arrest'.

The death sparked protest by public and autorickshaw drivers. Agitators demanded Rs 10 lakh compensation, government job for the victim's wife and action against the inspector.
In the absence of criminal antecedents, Suresh ought not to have been arrested and tortured by police, he said.
Police transgressed their powers and indulged in malafide exercise of power. They curtailed the rights of a common man and killed him, too, he said, and wanted Rs 10 lakh compensation and probe monitored by a district judge.
After being pulled up by the court and a magisterial probe too finding the inspector guilty, government has now informed that Rs five lakh has been sanctioned to the family, and the inspector was already under suspension.