KOCHI: The Puthencruz police on Tuesday arrested a person and detained three minors for allegedly assaulting a 16-year-old boy near his home at Thiruvaniyur village over an Instagram post. Nibin of Mattakuzhi was remanded, while the other three were sent home with their parents.
“The victim had tagged his picture on Instagram alongside the image of a girl with whom one of the juvenile offenders was having an affair. The group confronted the victim and assaulted him. One of the group members also filmed the entire assault,” said a police officer. The police came to know about the incident after a person shared the visuals on the District Police Chief’s Facebook page.
The police have registered a case under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 294B (any obscene act in any public place, or sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).“We conducted an inquiry based on the visuals. Though the Facebook post mentioned the place of incident as Chottanikkara, we came to know about the real location later,” said a police officer.