One of the men shows his injury.
One of the men shows his injury.
A group of policemen thrashed a group of five young men, between 21 and 25 years old, after they were allegedly abused and roughed up for flagging down their car at a picket near Najafgarh on Friday night.
DCP (southwest) Surender Kumar said three policemen on picket duty were forced to respond with force after the five men provoked them by first hurling verbal abuses before tearing their uniforms and assaulting them.
However, the group of five men accused the police of thrashing them at the picket and then again at the local Baba Haridas Nagar police station. They also displayed their injuries as “evidence” of the police assault.
DCP Kumar, however, asserted that no force of any kind was used against the five men at the police station. “Three of the policemen involved in the incident have been sent to district police lines pending further inquiry,” said Mr Kumar.
He said no FIR has been registered because in an initial inquiry the policemen were not found to have committed any cognisable offence. “The assault was from both sides. No one suffered grievous injuries,” the DCP said.
Dependra Pathak, joint CP (southwestern range), said that the men were caught drinking alcohol in their car and the policemen had to forcibly stop their vehicle.
The men have been identified as Gaurav, his cousin Anmol, and their three friends, Nishant, Raj and Deepak. The five men are natives of Bahadurgarh and Jharoda Kalan villages in Najafgarh.
The five men were headed to Jaipur for a trip on Friday night in Anmol’s Skoda Octavia when they were stopped in a market near Najafgarh. “Since there was no place to stop near the picket, we stopped a few metres ahead. Anmol, who was driving the car walked out, but was greeted with a slap by a constable,” claimed Gaurav.
He also claimed that none of them was drunk and that they had their documents in place and were driving at a very slow speed. “When we asked for the reason for the assault, they chose not to reply. When we protested against their behaviour, we were all beaten up by the policemen,” alleged Nishant.
Within minutes, more policemen arrived took the five men to Baba Haridas Nagar police station. “The policemen there restrained us and beat us up for an hour with lathis and kicks. My friend, Deepak, was restrained by two policemen while a third slapped him continuously for 10 minutes,” alleged Gaurav.
The men alleged that a local politician’s grandson, whose house was near the incident spot, had recorded the incident on his mobile phone, but he too was thrashed. The police dismissed this allegation as baseless.
