CHENNAI: Only a month has passed since the city police were admonished over their brutality on a juvenile, whom they picked up on mistaken identity from his residence in Kannagi Nagar. Before the memories of that police excess could drain, cops are in soup for a similar incident for picking up a juvenile from his residence in Red Hills and illegally detaining him for three days.
The 17-year-old boy from Podikadai slum in Otteri was picked up by the Secretariat Colony police on Sunday last (April 9) for allegedly stealing mobile phones in and around Otteri area along with three of his friends. Police had detained the boy during the course of which they severely beat him up.
“The cops forced him to confess and framed charges against him. They did not allow the parents to meet him either,” Andrew Sesuraj, State convener of the Tamil Nadu Child Rights Observatory (TNCRO) told Express.
On Tuesday evening, when the case came for hearing at the Juvenile Justice Board in Purasalwalkam, the boy spilled the beans.
Seeing the injuries along his knees and bruises left untreated, he was admitted in the local government hospital and was made to stay at the Observation Home on Tuesday night. Police sources said that JJB Chairperson Lakshmi Ramesh released the boy on bail during the hearing on Wednesday.