On Tuesday at around 11.00 a.m., the Panruti police station in Cuddalore district had an unexpected visitor. A 14-year-old girl walked in to lodge a complaint against her father for breaking open her piggy bank and spending it on alcohol.
The girl, a Class IX student, reached the station adamant on wanting to meet the station officer. Since the policemen on duty could not convince her to go back to home, inspector K. Ambedkar had to come out of his room to meet the girl.
“According to the girl, her father never went for work following the COVID-19 lockdown and it was only her mother who fed the family with her earnings from a tea shop run by her in front of the house. The girl’s father had broken her piggy bank and she wanted to lodge a complaint against her father and have him jailed,” said the inspector.
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When the inspector asked the girl to give a written complaint, the girl told him that her parents would simply drive her out of the house. At the same time, she wanted the police to put her father in jail, as he had beaten both her and her mother for questioning him.
The police then called the teen’s father to the station. When the inspector pretended to beat the man, the girl started weeping inconsolably fearing that her father would be beaten black and blue.
She requested them to pardon her father and not to punish him following which the man too realised his mistake and hugged his daughter, the inspector said.
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When both started weeping, the police counselled the father. Satisfied, the girl returned home with her father.
“Tackling social problems should not always be rule-bound and a solution can be found based on psychological counselling too,” said Mr. Ambedkar.