Cops ‘torture’ minor ‘for breaking window pane’

At 9 pm on Saturday,the victim Ricky was picked up by the police when he had gone to the market to buy sugar,on the suspicion of breaking a window pane of the house. The boy was pushed around and punched in the chest by the policemen. At the police post,he was made to take off his clothes and stand naked for over two hours.

Speaking to Newsline,Ricky said,“The policemen took me to the basement of the police post and slapped me behind the head. Two persons also stood on my thighs and asked me tell the names of the boys who were with me at that moment,which I was not able to tell as I did not break the glass. They hit me with their lathis on the thighs and near the knees. They even took my cash and mobile phone which I was carrying with me. At 1 pm they asked for mother’s phone number after I started vomiting and told her to take me away from the police station.”

“The boy had bruise marks all over his body and could barely walk when he returned home. On Sunday he was taken to Government Multi-Specialty Hospital,Sector 16 (GMSH-16),Chandigarh,to get a medical check-up done after he developed fever and could not eat anything,” said the victim’s father Jai Kumar.

The doctors said he had multiple bruises and injury marks on his knee and elbow coin and told the family to get X-rays of the knee and mouth done. They did not give them the medical report,saying they would give it to a lawyer or to the cops on Court orders.

“My wife submitted a complaint to the SSP’s office regarding the harassment on Wednesday but on Thursday night the police came to our house and tried to arrest me for no reason. When I and the others in the colony objected,they went away but returned later and took away my motorcycle to the police post. On Friday,we again went to the SSP’s office after meeting the home secretary.”

Sector 61 police post In-Charge Sub-Inspector Maninder Singh said,“The boy was caught by the public and thrashed for stealing. He was badly beaten and we registered a case and handed the boy back to his family.”

He claimed that the boy has some theft cases registered against him and and that his father is a gambler. “We had impounded some vehicles from near the forest,suspecting them to be used by gamblers. In the morning we found out that one of the bikes belonged to Kumar,” added Singh.

The police did not explain why they did not get a medical check-up done when they found that the boy “had been beaten up by a mob”.