Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday - May 4 has said that the 48-year-old man, who breathed his last under judicial custody, has died due to seizures. The Chief Minister has said that the probe is underway as he opened up about what has become a shocking custodial death, nearly a week after the incident. 

The Chief Minister said that the government would act based on the CB-CID inquiry into the death of 48-year-old Thangamani, who was a resident of Thattaranai in the Tiruvannamalai district. MK Stalin had reiterated his last week's assurance to Opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami that he would clarify after the postmortem report. 

He said, "He (Thangamani) had died on April 26, after developing seizures when he was sent to sub-jail following his arrest on the previous day. A case was registered on the death and a judicial magistrate investigated it. A postmortem was performed following the guidelines of the Supreme Court." It has been reported that the relatives had collected the body after the higher officials including the IG North Zone and the District Collector had assured them that a fair probe would be conducted. 

MK Stalin further noted that the police personnel who were involved in arresting Thangamani were transferred to another district. Last month, Tamil Nadu had witnessed two back-to-back custodial deaths. Within ten days of an alleged custodial death of 25-year-old Vignesh in Chennai, Thangamani had died under judicial custody. Thangamani was a farmer from Thattaranai village and he was arrested on April 26 by the police on the charges of making arrack illegally.

Thangamani's family had said that before his arrest, the police had approached them and demanded a payment of Rs 2 lakh. The police said that the amount would be a fee for not arresting Thangamani. However, the family has refused to pay following which the police officials began to tease them by using their caste names. Thangamani belongs to the Malaikkuravar community, which falls under the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. 

Thangamani's son 25-year-old Dhinakaran has said that the police had told them that it would cost over Rs 2 lakh to release Thagamani from the jail after they decided to register a case against him. However, his father had refused to pay and he was taken to the police station on the morning of April 26 and on April 27, the family was informed by the local councillor that Thangamani is dead.