A 40-year-old conductor with Metropolitan Transport Corporation was assaulted in the early hours of Saturday and robbed of cash and his cell phone. Owing to the delay in establishing the jurisdiction of the police station concerned, a case was registered about 12 hours after the incident.
Senthan (40) is a resident of Periyar Nagar, Perungalathur. Attached to the Central depot in Chennai of MTC, he is a conductor on the A 51 route between East Tambaram and High Court. As he had to report for the first-shift duty at 4.30 a.m., he left home around 2 a.m. He was crossing the railway track between Perungalathur and Vandalur railway stations when four men assaulted and overpowered him.
He was robbed of Rs.2,000 in cash and a cell phone he was carrying. They tied his hands behind a tree beside the railway tracks and gagged his mouth before fleeing from the spot. A little later, he managed to untie his hands and rushed to a check post on Grand Southern Trunk Road manned by personnel from Peerkankaranai police station.
The personnel rushed to the spot and managed to pick up two of the four assailants. They were detained at the police station. However, the personnel later told Senthan that the scene of crime came under the jurisdiction of Otteri police station. He went to Otteri police, coming under Kancheepuram police station and located on Vandalur – Kelambakkam Road. He was informed that as the incident took place near the railway track, the case had to be lodged at Government Railway Police Station, Tambaram.
Senthan came to GRP, Tambaram, only to be sent back to Peerkankaranai again. The Peerkankaranai police, however, sent him back to Otteri and sent the two suspects too there. After much hassle, personnel of the three police stations talked it over and concluded that the scene of the crime came under the jurisdiction of GRP, Tambaram, where a case was finally registered around 3 p.m., over 12 hours after the incident.
A couple of friends and relatives told reporters that Senthan had sustained injuries and had to be given multiple stitches.
He was forced to shuttle between one police station and another. He had spent nearly Rs.1,000 for hiring autorickshaws, they said and lashed out at the callous attitude of the personnel at the three police stations. They said that one of the police stations could have accepted the complaint, filed a case before transferring to the police station concerned.
