Alarming that none has been booked 3 years after Thoothukudi police firing: HC

Judges direct that interim report of NHRC & judicial commission be submitted

“It is somewhat alarming that the State through its police fired at unarmed protesters and no one is booked some three years after the incident,” the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed on Friday on the Thoothukudi police firing incident, in which 13 anti-Sterlite protesters were killed in May 2018. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam observed, “It may not augur well for a civilised society governed by the constitutional principles that we have to merely throw money at the families of the victims [as compensation] and give closure to an incident of possible brutality and excessive police action.” The court made the remarks while hearing a petition filed by advocate Henri Tiphagne, who sought a direction to the National Human Rights Commission to reopen the case and furnish the investigation report submitted by the investigation team of the NHRC.