YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar’s mother has filed a habeas corpus petition (HCP) in the Madras High Court seeking a judicial inquiry into the alleged violence unleashed against him at the Coimbatore central prison.
The HCP is expected to be listed for hearing before a summer vacation Bench of Justices A.D. Jagadish Chandira and R. Kalaimathi on Wednesday. The petitioner, A. Kamala, 68, claimed to have learnt about the attack from her son’s lawyer.
According to the petitioner, her son was a social activist, whistle blower, political commentator and a YouTuber “who had unearthed various scams” that had earned him the wrath of the government as well as “corrupt officials” who were hand in glove with the mafia.
She claimed he was arrested by the Coimbatore cyber crime police on May 4 in a “false” case booked for speaking ill about women police personnel in an interview that he gave to a YouTube channel. He was declared medically fit before being imprisoned, she said.
However, when the lawyer met him in prison recently, he had complained of having been assaulted brutally inside the prison, the petitioner said and claimed that her son had also suffered a fracture on his right hand due to the attack.
She insisted on conducting a judicial inquiry into the incident and providing treatment to her son in a private hospital.
Another case
In the meantime, T. Vignesh, 28, creative head of Savukku media, filed a writ to restrain the Greater Chennai Police from interfering with the functioning of the YouTube channel from its office at T.Nagar in Chennai.
The petitioner claimed they began to face trouble from the police ever since Shankar expressed his intention to contest against Youth Welfare Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin from Chepauk constituency in the 2026 Assembly election.
Stating that Savukku Media’s office was under constant surveillance as it could be seen from the CCTV footages, the petitioner said they were unable to access the office because of such ‘targeting.”
