In a shocking development, a Chennai man has passed away in police custody on Tuesday. The incident had happened at the Commissioner's office and the Vepery police have registered a case under the grounds of custodial death and the matter has been referred to a magistrate's inquiry. 

According to reports, a man named Vedhachalam was detained by the Chennai police for questioning in connection with a credit card scam. He was brought to the Commissioner's Office on Tuesday and hours later, he had collapsed and died in police custody. The incident had shocked the officials and launched a probe into the custodial death. 

The reports say that Vedhachalam's wife Hamsa and Sundarajan, Hamsa's nephew, had witnessed the incident when Vedhachalam had collapsed at around 2.30 pm on Tuesday. He was taken to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital for treatments. However, the doctors declared him brought dead. The Vepery police had registered a case of custodial death. 

The incident had happened on the same day when the state marked the first year death anniversary of Jayaraj and Bennix, the father and son in Sathankulam in the Thoothukudi district, who had died last year due to brutal torture given by the police officers after taking them into custody. The responsible police officers were suspended and have been imprisoned on the charges connected to murdering the father and son. 

On the other hand, a trader in the Salem district has died after he was beaten by a police officer in a checkpoint amid enforcing the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions. According to reports, Murugesan, who was a trader in a provision store in Salem, had gone to Dharmapuri district to buy liquor as the TASMAC liquor shops were closed in Salem due to the severe lockdown in the wake of surging COVID-19 cases. 

The police had installed several checkpoints in Salem to monitor the movement of people and on Tuesday, Murugesan was returning to Salem from Dharmapuri after buying liquor. When he arrived at the Edapati checkpoint, the police officials stopped him and identified that he was already under alcoholic influence, post which he argued with the police officials. A police officer, Periasamy, had started beating Murugesan. 

The police officer had beaten him on the road and Murugesan had lost his consciousness on the spot and he was taken to the Salem government hospital in the evening hours of Tuesday. Amid the treatments, his health had deteriorated as he had sustained severe injuries at the back of his head and he had passed away in the morning hours of Wednesday.