The Maharashtra Crime Investigation Department (CID) has registered two FIRs naming 18 Pune police personnel, including senior officers, over allegations of custodial assault, illegal detention and public humiliation of four adults and eight children in conflict with law at Bharati Vidyapeeth Police Station.
It alleges that the children were assaulted with bamboo sticks and belts, while police records were prepared to show that some had been handed over to their parents or guardians. The complaint alleges that some children were taken along the road between the Ambegaon Pathar police outpost and Bharati Vidyapeeth Police Station with a rope tied to a police vehicle and publicly paraded. Police personnel allegedly identified them as accused in a murder case. The commission had taken suo motu cognisance after videos of the alleged treatment of the children surfaced. The MSHRC criticised the police’s internal inquiry, saying statements of the children allegedly subjected to the treatment had not been recorded and describing the inquiry as one-sided.
The second FIR names 11 personnel, including Patil, assistant police inspectors Ganesh Mohite and Snehal Thorat, PSI Mokashi and personnel Hanwate, Chormole, Borge, Shendkar, Dinesh Tapke, Mangesh Pawar and Suvarna Dattatray Bhise, over the alleged illegal detention, assault and public humiliation of eight children in conflict with law who had been detained in connection with another crime. Four children were taken into custody on July 20 and brought to the police station the following day, according to the FIR. Three more were brought around 8.30pm on July 21 and the eighth around noon on July 22. All eight were produced before the Juvenile Justice Board on July 25. The FIR alleges that seven children were kept for more than three days and the eighth for more than 24 hours. Its inquiry found that three children were allegedly tied with ropes to the bonnet of a police vehicle and paraded from the Ambegaon Pathar outpost to Bharati Vidyapeeth police station on July 21, a finding it said was supported by oral and electronic evidence.
CCTV footage and statements made by the children before the board have been cited in support. It also noted that the children had not been produced before the Juvenile Justice Board within the prescribed period. The cases, filed by CID deputy superintendent Sanket Satish Gosavi with the investigation assigned to additional director general of police Sunil Ramanand, were registered early on Thursday following findings of the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC).
