BHOPAL: A viral video purportedly showing three minors being beaten by a teenager with slippers and forced them to chant a religious slogan, triggered protest by the Muslim community in the communally sensitive Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday evening.
Acting on the matter, the local police lodged a criminal assault case, abusive behaviour and hurting religious sentiments under BNS Sections against two accused.
“The 16-year-old boy has been detained and sent to the juvenile reform centre, while the other teenager too is being searched,” Ratlam district police superintendent Amit Kumar told this newspaper on Friday.
According to a senior police officer in Ratlam district, the video which went viral on Thursday evening, actually pertains to an incident that happened a month and a half back at Amrit Sagar Garden in Ratlam.
Initial probe has revealed that the three boys aged 6,9 and 11 years were caught by the two teenagers (aged 16 and 17 years) while smoking cigarettes in the big park cum garden which also houses a pond and a place of worship. Subsequently, the 16-year-old boy mercilessly hit the three minors with a slipper and forced them to chant a religious slogan. The entire brutality was shot by the 17-year-old teenager and possibly made viral by him only on Thursday evening.
Once the video went viral, Muslim community members protested outside the local police station on Thursday evening, demanding immediate action against those involved in the incident.
Meanwhile, the incident happened a month and a half back, and none of the three minors or their kin reported it to the police.
The police came to know about it only after the video went viral on Thursday evening.
The video which shows the teenager hitting the minors with slippers, using abusive language and forcing them to chant a religious slogan, revived the chilling memories of April 2023, when an 11-year-old boy from the minority community was allegedly stripped, flogged with belt and made to chant religious slogans by a group of minors from the other community in Indore.
In April 2023 also, the entire savagery with the 11-year-old boy in Indore was shot on camera and posted on social media.