Protester died due to natural causes

Chennai: The police on Tuesday informed the Madras high court that the agitation by differently-abled here on February 17 was handled with utmost care following all court-issued guidelines. The death of a 72-year-old man, who was not a person with special needs but only helping the demonstrators, was a natural one. S. Manoharan, joint commissioner of police, said this in his status report in response to suo motu proceedings by court.

Taking cognisance of a newspaper report on the death of the old man after the agitation by differently-abled persons, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M. M. Sundresh had on February 19 initiated suo motu proceedings and directed the authorities to file a status report.

Accordingly, the police officer filed the present status report.  After perusing the status report, the bench treated as closed the proceedings. The status report said the Tamil Nadu Association for the rights of all types of differently-abled and caregivers took out a protest march to lay siege to secretariat on February 17. This required certain action by police.

All necessary care was taken with co-ordination committee members to resolve the issue and to represent the grievance to the authorities concerned.  At the request of  demonstrators, they were ultimately kept under one roof.

They were released the same day evening. Kuppusamy, 72, complained of headache and suddenly started vomiting blood and was rushed to government Royapettah hospital, but died despite treatment. Post-mortem revealed the deceased died due to effect of intra-cranial hemorrhage of natural causes, the report said.