Tamil Dalit youth’s detention sparks a row

Tirupati: The alleged illegal detention of a 20-year-old Dalit student Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, by Tirupati police is snowballing into a controversy between the two states. The youth, Stalin, studying 3 years law course and an SFI leader in Tirupati, was reportedly kept in police custody for 18 hours and was even beaten up by police on the basis of false information five days ago. He was released on Monday evening. Victim suffered injuries on shoulder, hips, hands and legs.

Highlights:

• Cops detain for 18 hours and beat up the SFI student on suspicion that he was involved in red sanders smuggling
• Victim’s family and some people’s organisations approach TN govt seeking action against Tirupati police for illegal detention and torture
• Urban SP orders departmental probe into the incident

Stalin’s family members and a few people’s organisations in Tamil Nadu submitted a representation to their state government seeking action against the Tirupati police.Accordingly delayed reports, Stalin who was studying in Ambedkar Law College here is staying at CPM office.

Police arrested him on June 4 midnight at city central bus stand and beat up him reportedly suspecting involvement in red sanders smuggling. They did not pay heed to his claims of innocence in Tamil, said to be due to language problem. On verifying facts, they released him after five days.

Now Stalin’s family is seeking departmental action against Tirupati east police station SI Pradeep Kumar, constables Shanmugasundaram, Venkatesh and Murali. They demanded punishment to police personnel who thrashed the Dalit youth.

CPM state committee member Kandarapu Murali, speaking to this correspondent on Friday, demanded both departmental and criminal action against the errant policemen. He said police tortured Stalin on the basis of false information causing severe trauma to the youth. “This is not the first time police violated the rules,” he said.

When contacted, Tirupati Urban SP R Jaylakshmi said, “It happened by mistaken and purely a result of human error. However, we ordered a probe into beating up of SFI leader Stalin.” She ruled out that the mistake may turn into an inter-state issue. Stating that ASP Murali Krishna, Tirumala, had been appointed as enquiry officer on the issue, she said if it is proved that East police had committed any wrongdoing, action would be taken against them according to norms.