The Madurai Sessions Court’s judgment finding nine policemen guilty for the custodial killings of Jayaraj and Bennix in Sathankulam marks a rare and significant moment in India’s criminal justice landscape. In a country where custodial deaths are frequent, yet convictions remain extremely rare, this judgment stands as a testament to the persistence of a grieving family, committed lawyers, and civil society actors who refused to let the case fade into institutional silence. However, death sentences for all nine policemen raise a different set of concerns.
The public response has been emphatic. The custodial murders of Jayaraj and Bennix generated shock and outrage during the Covid-19 pandemic. And the widespread support for the death sentences is seen as a reflection of the view that when the protectors become perpetrators, the law must respond with its severest sanction.
But it is precisely here that we must interrogate what this punishment represents and what it conceals. To treat the death penalty as an expression of us taking custodial violence seriously is deeply misleading. Much like the death penalty more generally, it risks becoming a politics of distraction. A singular, dramatic act that obscures a far more uncomfortable truth, the truth that custodial violence is systemic, routine, and largely unpunished.
Recent parliamentary data shows that custodial deaths remain stubbornly persistent. Between 2021 and 2026, the number of custodial deaths reported each year ranged between 140 and 176, with 170 cases in 2025-26 alone. Yet accountability is almost non-existent. In the same period, the National Human Rights Commission recommended disciplinary action in just one case from Tamil Nadu. This is not a system that has suddenly discovered moral clarity in Sathankulam. It is one that has long tolerated impunity for custodial violence.The Human Rights Watch report ‘Bound by Brotherhood’ documents how investigations are often compromised, with police shielding their own, witnesses intimidated, and even medical evidence manipulated. As the report notes, police frequently fail to follow basic arrest procedures such as informing families or producing detainees before a magistrate, creating conditions where abuse thrives unchecked. Against this backdrop, the death penalty in Sathankulam is spectacle rather than transformative. By framing the violence as the act of a few “monstrous” officers, it allows deeper questions about policing culture and accountability to remain unaddressed.
There is also the question of law. The Supreme Court has consistently held that sentencing must be individualised, and that the nature of the crime alone cannot determine whether the death penalty is imposed. Yet in the Sathankulam judgment, all nine were held deserving of equal punishment.
Individualised sentencing is a constitutional safeguard and not a technicality. It demands that courts examine the specific role, circumstances, and culpability of each accused before imposing the ultimate punishment. To bypass this requirement, even in a case as egregious as Sathankulam, risks undermining the very legal standards that are meant to constrain the use of the death penalty. It may be argued that such concerns are misplaced and that the focus should remain on justice being done in this case. But it is in precisely such cases that our commitment to the rule of law is tested. The broader data on death penalty sentencing in India should give us pause. Over the past decade, high courts have set aside or commuted nearly 82% of death sentences imposed by trial courts, confirming about 9.7%. At the SC level, the pattern is similar: only around 12% of death sentences are ultimately upheld. For the last three years, SC has not confirmed a single death sentence of the criminal appeals it has heard. These figures reveal a consistent pattern of trial courts adopting a crime-centric approach, allowing the brutality of the offence to dominate sentencing decisions, only for appellate courts to later intervene. This points to a deeper tension between public sentiment and constitutional principle. The demand for harsh punishment, particularly in cases like Sathankulam, is understandable. But courts are not meant to mirror public outrage. Their role is to uphold the law, even (and especially) when doing so is difficult.
The death sentences in Sathankulam offer us a false sense of closure. Custodial violence demands that we confront institutional realities, that we are unflinching in our efforts to end impunity. If Sathankulam is to mean anything, it must push us beyond the shallowness of the death penalty. It must force us to ask what we are really doing to prevent other Jayaraj and Bennix.

Surendranath is law professor and executive director, The Square Circle Clinic at NALSAR University of Law.

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