Pune police abuse, beat up and detain boy for 10 hours

A 13-year-old boy, Mahesh Maruti Jadhav, was allegedly abused, beaten up and detained for nearly 10 hours from 9 am on Tuesday by the police personnel at Dhankavdi police chowki.

They were apparently irked by the boy’s grandmother Baiyadabai’s (60) refusal to give in writing that she has no grievance against the police.

It was only after the intervention of DNA that the police set the boy free.

Mahesh, a standard V student of a zilla parishad school, is living with his grandmother in Dhankavdi. The boy’s father has passed away and his mother stays in Nagpur.

Baiyadabai, a street vendor, has been running from pillar to post since last Friday to lodge a complaint against the local police who allegedly assaulted her grandson.

On Thursday last, the teenager accidentally hit a 10-year-old girl while riding a bicycle and the duo used vulgar language against each other.

The girl’s mother went to Mahesh’s house the next day and dragged him to the police chowki and complained that he molested her daughter.

Mahesh said, “I was abused and assaulted by the policemen and the girl’s mother. I did not molest the girl. The police beat me up with belts and batons and threatened to throw me out of a window of the chowki.”

The boy said that later the woman took him to an isolated area near Parvati hill where she assaulted him and made him naked. Somehow he managed to set himself free.

A few days later, the boy was again called to the police chowki where two constables abused and slapped him. Baiyadabai, who was in Indapur when the incident took place, found the boy missing when she returned to Pune.

Apparently fearing police harassment, Mahesh took shelter at Mahatma Phule Mandai, where the old woman found him on Sunday.

“I took him to Sassoon General Hospital for treatment. The police have brutally assaulted my grandson. I want to register a police complaint but there is no one to take note of it,” she said.

The police detained the boy on Tuesday and told his grandmother to sign a statement that she does not have any grievances against the police.

“But I have refused. I want those policemen who assaulted my grandson to be punished,” she said.