J Beniks (left) and his father P Jeyaraj

MADURAI: The first additional district and sessions court in Madurai on Monday awarded death sentence to all the nine cops convicted in the murders of P Jeyaraj and his son J Beniks in Sathankulam in Tuticorin district in 2020.Judge G Muthukumaran imposed death sentence on all the nine convicted cops — then inspector S Sridhar, sub-inspectors K Balakrishnan, P Raghu Ganesh, head constables S Murugan and A Samadurai, and four constables — M Muthuraja, S Chelladurai, X Thomas Francis and S Vailmuthu. The 10th suspect, the then special sub-inspector Paldurai, who too had been arrested, died of Covid-19 in August 2020. Nearly six years after a father-son duo were tortured and killed by Sathankulam police while in custody, the court found all the nine police personnel guilty of the double-murder on March 23. Jeyaraj and Beniks were taken to the Sathankulam police in Tuticorin district late in the evening of June 19, 2020, on charges of having kept their shop open beyond the deadline during the Covid-19 lockdown. They were brutally assaulted by the policemen at night and were lodged in Kovilpatti sub-jail the next day. Beniks died of injuries at the Kovilpatti govt hospital on June 22, 2020, while his father Jeyaraj died on June 23, 2020.After the double-murder in custody triggered a public outcry Madras high court took suo motu cognizance of the custodial deaths June 24, 2020. On June 29, the high court handed over the case to the CBI. After the Tuticorin principal district judge, who had been closely monitoring the case, informed that personnel at the police station were not cooperating with the Kovilpatti judicial magistrate’s inquiry, the high court directed the Tuticorin district collector to depute revenue officers for taking control of the police station for collecting relevant materials.The CBI filed the chargesheet against nine policemen on Sept 25, 2020. It filed a supplementary chargesheet on Aug 12, 2022.