THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A four-member family, including an elderly woman and a 17-year-old girl, was assaulted by police personnel during a local temple festival procession at Perumpazhuthoor near Neyyattinkara on Thursday night. Incidentally, the family was mourning the death of an elderly member.
The incident took place around 9.30 pm. It was the policemen who were deployed at Aruvippuram in connection with a procession as part of an annual festival at a nearby temple that committed the atrocity towards the family of Madhu, a retired government servant.
The police barged into the house in search of a youth who is also a family member. When Madhu stopped the police, they thrashed him. An elderly woman of the family as well as Madhu’s 17-year-old daughter Anjali Krishna were also assaulted.
According to sources close to the family, Madhu’s mother had died early this week and hence the family was in mourning. A month ago, they had lost another senior member of the family. When the temple procession passed in front of their house, Madhu instructed his son, Aravind, 22, to get inside the house.
This resulted in a small quarrel between the two. The policemen on duty on the road intervened and tried to take Aravind into custody mistaking him for a miscreant. In the scuffle that followed, one of the cops sustained an injury, which they alleged was caused when Aravind pelted a stone at them. The cops soon swarmed into the house and thrashed everyone when the family tried to protect Aravind from being taken away.
Though the police arrested Aravind and produced him before the court on Friday, the magistrate granted him bail as the defence counsel produced medical records of all the injured and apprised the court about the atrocities committed by the police.