KOCHI: The Fort Kochi Police arrested four persons on charges of heckling and assaulting a young, engaged couple at Fort Kochi beach on Sunday. M A Jaber, 34; B Naufal, 32; Mohammed Ali, 36; and Abdul Riyas, 28, all natives of Mattancherry, were the arrested.
According to the police, the incident was a suspected case of moral policing. “The couple was sitting on the concrete fortification around a tree at Fort Kochi beach. Two of the accused sitting nearby questioned their intimacy and started heckling them. They wanted them to leave the place. When the couple retaliated, the two accused called their friends to the spot. They then started beating the man. The woman was also roughed up,” said an officer. The police have registered a case under Sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC.