The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), which took suo motu cognisance of a report published in The Hindu about a case of alleged police excess, on Thursday recommended a compensation of ₹2 lakh to the victim’s family.
According to the report published in The Hindu on March 13, 2016, a resident of Kannagi Nagar in Okkiyam Thuraipakkam lodged a complaint that a group of policemen had assaulted his 17-year-old son, mistaking him for a cell phone thief. He also alleged that he was threatened not to file a complaint against the policemen. After taking suo motu cognisance of the report and after completion of investigation, SHRC member D. Jayachandran recommended that the Tamil Nadu government pay a compensation of ₹2 lakh to the victim’s family, within four weeks.
During the probe at the SHRC, it was informed that a case was registered against the police at the Velachery police station, under Sections 341, 323 and 506(ii) of the IPC, and it was still pending trial before the XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate in Saidapet. The constable involved has been suspended from service, and punishment was awarded in May 2018. The Police Commissioner, in his report, had stated that the constable, without permission from officials, took the victim for inquiry, and was hence suspended from service and disciplinary action taken. Though both the respondents — Saravanakumar and Senthilkumar — appeared before the Commission initially, they failed to appear for probe on November 26, this year.
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After assaulting the teenager, the police had also threatened staff at the Government Royapettah Hospital (GRH) not to mention the involvement of the police in the incident.