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Man taken into custody by Kerala police dies

Parakkal Siby, who was taken into on June 29 from Marangattupally in Kottayam district, died on Saturday.

Trivandrum - A 40-year-old man, who was taken into custody by the Kerala police 13 days ago in case related to a scuffle with a neighbour, died on Saturday.
Hospital sources said he died due to head injuries. While relatives of Parakkal Siby, who was taken into on June 29 from Marangattupally in Kottayam district, said that the injury was caused by the torture inflicted on Siby during the custody, the Kottayam police and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala have denied this.
Backing the relatives' charge, Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) has called a shutdown strike in Kottayam district on Monday.
CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has demanded immediate arrest of all police officials involved in the incident and registration of murder cases against them.
Activists of the CPM and the Bharatiya Janata Party staged a march to the police station at Marngattupally. The State Human Rights Commission and the Kerala Police Complaint Authority have suo-motu registered cases in connection with the incident.
Central Range Inspector-General of Police has suspended Marangattupally police Sub Inspector Georgekutty, who took Siby into custody, has been suspended for not taking him to hospital for medical check-up immediately after he was taken into custody.
Father of three children, Siby, who belongs to Scheduled Caste, was taken into custody on June 29 following a drunken brawl with a neighbour. The next day he was brought to the Pala General Hospital with head injuries and thereafter shifted to the Kottayam Medical College Hospital.
Doctors there performed an emergency surgery on the victim seeing the seriousness of his condition. After lying unconscious for a week, he was put on ventilator. His condition worsened on Saturday and he breathed his last around 1.30pm on Saturday.
Relatives of Siby alleged that he was subjected to brutal custodial torture. His parents said Siby was forced to lie down in the rain on the veranda of the police station. His mother said that her son was conscious when she met him in the police station on the night of June 29.
Kottayam superintendent of police M P Dinesh said that Siby had suffered injury during the scuffle before he was brought to the police station. He said that the only lapse on the part of the police officials at Mrangattupally was their failure to take him to hospital.
The home minister has also given clean chit to the Marangattupally police. He said that the officials in the station had not tortured Siby. - news@khaleejtimes.com

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