RAMANATHAPURAM
After a Dalit second year college student alleged excess by jailers when he was imprisoned in the sub-jail here as remand prisoner, Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena has directed the Bazaar police to make an entry in the Community Service Register and enquire into the alleged excess.
The SP ordered investigation on Wednesday after M. Naganatha Prabu, 19, studying BBA at Alagappa University constituent college in Paramakudi, lodged a complaint with Bazaar police station, alleging excess by two Sub-Inspectors of Police, attached to Emaneswaram and Paramakudi Town police stations, and three jailers in the sub-jail.
Emaneswaram police had arrested Prabu under Sections 294 (b), 323, 324 and 506 (ii) of the Indian Penal Code on September 27 and remanded him in judicial custody in the sub-jail the same night. Soon after he was lodged in jail, three jailers, who had ‘secret talks’ with the police, beat him with sticks, he alleged.
They again beat him the next day and one of them abused him by mentioning his caste name, he alleged. After his release on bail on October 1, he got himself admitted to Government district headquarters hospital here. After treatment, he was discharged on Wednesday. Hospital sources said he had fracture in the colour bone and contusions in the body.
Though the police claimed that Prabu was arrested on the charge of assaulting a person at Emaneswaram when the victim went there in search of his missing cattle, Prabu said no such incident took place and he was implicated in the case by the police. After he had a tiff with a student 20 days ago, both of them lodged complaints with Emaneswaram police. The police let them go after warning and no FIR was registered, he said.
On September 27, Emaneswarasm SI took him in a private vehicle and, after keeping him in Kadaladi and Sayalkudi the whole day, produced him before a magistrate at his house in Paramakudi around 10 p.m., he said. When the magistrate asked whether the police beat him, he replied in the affirmative, after which, the magistrate ‘admonished’ the police before remanding him, he said.