Thoothukudi: The CB-CID arrested five policemen of Sathankulam police station, in connection with the deaths of Sathankulam traders P. Jeyaraj and his son J. Beniks while in custody last week.

In the investigation the officials find the involvement of the officers. The CB- CID arrested S.I Raghu Ganesh and Head Constable Murugan late on Wednesday, the SHO Srithar, S.I Balakrishnan and constable Muthuraj were arrested early hours on Thursday. After took over the investigation on Wednesday, the CB- CID also altered the FIR registered in the case included the Section 302 of the IPC, said K. Shanker, CB- CID IG in a media briefing late Wednesday night.

CB- CID IG Shanker said that twelve special teams had been formed to probe the case, and they had started their investigation. At that time, Shankar told reporters that the investigation had just begun and the decision to invoke murder charges would be taken based on the progress of the investigation.

The CB- CID IG Shanker reached Thoothukudi along with his team and started investigation. Shanker first visited the mobile accessories shop owned by Beniks at Sathankulam. The sleuths also questioned a trader in the adjacent shop. Then the team visited the house of the victims and conducted a preliminary inquiry with Jeyaraj’s three daughters and their husbands, and Jeyaraj’s widow Selvarani.

Shankar later conducted inquiries at the Sathankulam police station, where the victims were held and allegedly thrashed through the night of June 19. Friends and eyewitnesses who met the duo the next day when they were produced before a magistrate said they were both grievously injured and bleeding profusely. Father and son were remanded at Kovilpatti sub-jail on June 20. Beniks died shortly after being brought to Kovilpatti Government Hospital on the night of June 22 while Jeyaraj died at the hospital the next morning.

The CB- CID produced Ganesh before Thoothukudi Chief Judicial Magistrate S. Hema in the early hours of Thursday after doctors at the Thoothukudi Government Hospital certified him fit. The CJM remanded him to the Perurani district jail till July 16.

The arrests come just a day after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the CB-CID to begin an investigation into the deaths. The State Government had transferred the case to the CBI but the HC feared that evidence might be lost or tampered with by the time the central agency took on the probe. The CB-CID was, therefore, ordered to begin its probe in the interim. The case is scheduled to come up for hearing before the Madurai Bench on Thursday.