For 10 years, his father Thankappan kept the body in a concrete tank filled with formalin in the front yard of his house in Cherthala and waited for justice. He hoped that the police officers who he thought was responsible for his son's death would be brought to book.

Governments came and went, visiting journalists wrote stories on the father's `bizarre' way of seeking justice, leaders and village elders asked Thankappan to end his fight. But he remained adamant -- till yesterday.

Thankappan, in his late 70s, reduced to skin and bone by poverty and disease, has partially won his fight. The Kerala High Court has ordered a CBI inquiry into the incident and a departmental inquiry into Gopi's death in police custody and awarded a compensation of Rs 3 lakh. Thankappan finally decided to cremate the body on the advice of Father George Pulikuthi and his advocate Shaji Thomas, both associated with Jananeethi, ahuman rights organisation which helped him with the case. In the presence of an anxious local crowd, reporters, camera crews of various private TV channels and human rights activists including Justice T Chandrashekhara Menon, Gopi's last rites were performed.

Gopi was summoned to the Cherthala police station on October 5 on suspicion that he was involved in a petty theft case. His father and a neighbour also went to the police station but were told to come back the next morning. The next day Thankappan received a telegram from the police saying his son had committed suicide by piercing his abdomen with a tubelight used as a ruler in the station.