BENGALURU: In a scene straight out of the movie, Jai Bhim, where the police commit atrocities against backward communities, an inspector of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), who was drunk, allegedly picked up an elderly vendor at the Mandya railway station and thrashed him inside the police station on February 20. The vendor is now bedridden and unable to go to work as he has suffered a broken thumb and several other injuries. The inspector has been suspended and the inquiry is going on, while his junior has been transferred.
Before the assault came to light, a massive coverup operation was taken up to keep the brutality under wraps. The vendor was offered money and threatened to keep quiet, sources in Mandya said. They added that the Inspector, Aboo Ramachandran, who was upset over some professional issue, had allegedly consumed alcohol. “He saw 65-year-old Ninganna, who has worked as a vendor here for the last 20 years, serving a customer inside the railway station and called out to him.
RPF inspector tried to pay off victim, hush up case
Ninganna, who was operating unauthorisedly as his licence was yet to be renewed, told the officer to wait. This enraged the inspector, who dragged the vendor to the RPF station on Platform One and rained blows on him with a lathi,” said a reliable source. “Ninganna’s thumb broke when he tried to protect himself from the blows,” the source added. The inspector went home after the incident.
“The other policemen rushed the vendor to a hospital with a bleeding head as they were worried about his survival,” the source said. When Ninganna approached the GRP station and wanted to file a complaint against Aboo, the policemen alerted RPF.
“Ramesh, an Assistant Sub- Inspector, GRP, forced the vendor to file a complaint stating that he sustained injuries after falling down on the platform. Ninganna was told that he can conduct his business at the railway station only if he filed the complaint as told,” the source said. Aboo told Ninganna that he would take care of medical expenses and also offered to pay Rs 1.5 lakh to Ninganna through a mediator to cover up the case, another source said.
The medico legal certificate, given by the doctor who treated Ninganna, describes injuries as minor. But he is bedridden now and could take at least four months to recover as he has suffered injuries on his spine, hands, head and legs. Inspector Boro of RPF is carrying out the inquiry against Aboo, while ASI Paramesh has been transferredw from the Mandya Railway Station to S a thya S a i Pr a shant i Nilayam.