THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: South Zone IG Harshita Attaluri will probe the incident pertaining to the public shaming of a 38-year-old man and his eight-year-old daughter by a senior woman civil police officer attached with the pink patrol unit on Friday evening near Attingal. The decision to hold an enquiry by a senior IPS officer was taken after the victim Jayachandran, a native of Thonnakkal, lodged a complaint with state police chief Anil Kant on Tuesday.
Earlier, the police had transferred cop CP Rejitha out of the pink patrol force and posted her to Kollam for 15 days of behavioural training. Rejitha stoked controversy when she publicly humiliated Jayachandran and his daughter alleging they had stolen her mobile phone from the pink patrol vehicle parked near Moonnumukku. However, she later found the phone in the car.
The father-daughter duo had arrived at Monnummukku to witness the movement of a huge trailer, carrying equipment, to VSSC in Thiruvananthapuram. The woman police officer accused Jayachandran of stealing her mobile phone, as she was unable to find it in the patrol car. She claimed she had seen him taking the phone from the vehicle and passing it on to his daughter. The cop further threatened to take the father-daughter duo to the police station for further questioning and physical examination after which the child burst into tears. It snowballed into a big controversy when the phone was recovered from the seat cover of the pink patrol car.
The whole incident was captured on video by a bystander who later released it on social media. It has brought huge embarrassment for the force and the Special Branch and the local police were told to file separate reports on the episode. The police reports, surprisingly, did not find fault with the way the woman cop behaved with the man and his daughter. Instead, it said the cop should have apologised to the victims as a matter of courtesy once she found that the phone was not missing. The report also tried to whitewash the cop saying she did not "misbehave or overreact".