A view of the Cuddalore Central Prison
| Photo Credit: File
The Madras High Court on Wednesday sought the response of the Tamil Nadu Home Secretary and Director General of Prisons to a writ petition filed by YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar alleging that as many as nine inmates of the Cuddalore Central Prison are being kept in solitary confinement and are being tortured by the prison superintendent.
Justice G. Chandrasekharan ordered notice to the respondents and adjourned the case for a week for the officials to respond. In his affidavit, the petitioner stated that he was found guilty in a suo motu contempt of court proceedings initiated by the High Court and lodged at the Central Prison in Cuddalore from September 16 to November 19.
During his incarceration, he learnt about the nine prisoners ‘Kuppai’ Kannan alias Kannan, K. Vinoth Kumar, K. Vicky Babu, I. Sheik, N. Sathish, Jackie alias A. Prashanth, S. Thenga Vinoth, K. Nagaraj and H. Ibrahim kept in solitary confinement and beaten up brutally by the prison superintendent Senthil Kumar.
After his release on bail, the petitioner made representations to the Home Secretary as well as the Director General of Prisons on November 23 and made a specific request to get the nine prisoners released from solitary confinement. Since there was no action, the petitioner had approached the court to uphold their human rights.