Sai Krishna's disappearance became a custodial death. What it reveals about police impunity

24-year-old Gade Sai Krishna was arrested by a task force from Markapuram, roughly 300 km from Vijaywada, on May 5. He was then handed over to the Krishnalanka police station on May 6, in relation to a non-bailable police warrant. Almost a month later, Sai's mother, Gade Vijayalakshmi, was seeking details about his whereabouts from the police. He had allegedly gone missing. Sai's mother Vijayalakshmi, alleged custodial torture, death, and cremation by a police officer.

Vijayalakshmi alleged that she visited the Police Station to plea the police to release her son, where she saw his legs were tied up and heard his cries. She was verbally abused, denied information and made to leave. According to Vijaylakshmi, she had been allegedly warned by Krishnalanka Circle Inspector Nagaraju, “Buy a funeral garland.” She reportedly continued to visit the police station almost every day since Sai's disappearance until she finally approached the High Court on June 2.

The SIT probe

A SIT was formed on June 21, 2026, to investigate the sudden "disappearance" of Sai Krishna. The SIT submitted a report to the local Vijaywada Court on June 24, 2026. It turned the "disappearance" case into a custodial death. The main accused is a 53-year-old Circle Inspector Suda Suresh Veera Venkata (SSVV) Nagaraju, who has been arrested and suspended from the job. The preliminary remand report and the FIR mentioned that instead of producing Sai Krishna before a magistrate within 24 hours, the police kept him in illegal confinement. It confirmed that he died from injuries sustained during custody between May 6 and May 8. The report also said that to cover up this death, CCTV footage from May 1 to June 1 was intentionally deleted from the DVR system. His body was secretly burned, and his ashes were disposed of in the nearby Krishna River to get rid of any physical evidence. The final report, tracking down the remains of Sai, and the capture of his associates are yet to be concluded.

Also Read: Why Iran scheduled Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral to coincide with US Independence Day

A persistent culture of impunity

Sai Krishna had a recorded history of around 20 criminal cases; he had been allegedly involved in the local cannabis trade. He had been acquitted of 18 cases, and two cases were pending. Among the acquitted cases, there was a POCSO case as well. Sai's family alleged that because of his rap sheet, he was a perfect target for the police to score brownie points by showing that they had clamped down on the local cannabis trade. Similar to the case of Sai Krishna, a Dalit man, Kranthi Kumar, explicitly alleged that he was subjected to brutal caste-based harassment and torture by the same officer, CI Nagaraju. He died by suicide after recording a selfie video.

In India, 170 custodial deaths were recorded in 2025-26 up to March 15, according to data presented in Lok Sabha. The number may seem too small for a country like India, but many cases of custodial torture do not result in death. While many investigations have shown that scores of custodial deaths are not even reported as one. But the most striking number is that only one case of disciplinary action has been reported. This implies that state continues to absorb the public shock of transforming the police lockup into a lawless “state of exception” within the bureaucratic machinery, using Special Investigation Teams and legal procedures, while performing hollow justice.

Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan said that if they should defend someone who was involved in the rape of a 14-year-old, if they should defend someone just because he belongs to the same caste as he comes from. This interpretation of structural violence specifically targeted at the marginalised groups because of their past criminal history, is defined by a Cameroonian Sociologist Achille Mbembe as Necropolitics. It interprets the structural violence of police brutality as an isolated case and allows the state to exercise the power of death over specific individuals, and justifies that the victim's life was "disposable" and lacked social or legal worth.