Two Odisha cops suspended for lockdown brutality

JAGATSINGHPUR: Amid reports of excesses committed by police personnel during enforcement of restrictions on unnecessary public movement, a sub-inspector and a constable were placed under suspension on Saturday evening for assaulting people out on the streets during the lockdown.

Jagatsinghpur SP R Prakash suspended SI in Erasama police station Dinesh Patta and constable in Balikuda PS Siba Prasad Nayak for their misconduct. Sources said 62-year-old Basant Sethy of Tarashai village within Balikuda police limits was going on foot to the nearby medicine shop to buy medicines for his ailing bed-ridden wife. He was stopped by Nayak who beat him up on the road for violating lockdown. The old man was beaten with a stick and kicked in the face.

When Sethy fell down, passersby pleaded with constable to spare him. However, Nayak continued to assault the elderly man. Later, locals rushed a bleeding Sethy to Balikuda hospital in a 108 ambulance for treatment. On Saturday, Sethy approached higher police officials of the district seeking justice following which action was taken against the constable.

Similarly, an employee of a cell phone company in Erasama was brutally beaten by police when he was on way to the mobile tower last week. On being stopped by the police, the victim told SI Patta that he was going to the cell phone tower for maintenance work. Patta demanded for his pass but he failed to produce it. The SI assaulted the victim with a stick. Acting on the victim’s complaint against Patta, a probe was ordered into the incident.

In another incident, a vegetable vendor, Mitu Puhan of Jagatsinghpur town, fractured his hand after police assaulted him with a pipe for delay in closing his shop during the lockdown.The incidents of police brutalities have fuelled public anger in the district.