Chennai, July 3 -- The custodial death of a 29-year-old temple watchman, Ajith Kumar on June 29 has rekindled the conversation on police violence in Tamil Nadu. India reported 73 deaths in police custody across the country in 2022, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.

In this list, the state of Gujarat has the highest number of custodial deaths at 14 followed by Maharashtra (11) while Tamil Nadu is sixth with five deaths.

However, for the same year, according to data collated by Tamil Nadu based People's Watch, a human rights NGO which represents several families of victims of custodial deaths, there were 11 custodial deaths in 2022 which included a 17-year-old boy.

In the years of 2018-2019, out of the 136 custo...