The police constables on protection duty picked up the youth from home!
Questions raised on the connivance of police constables in the brutal act.
Mumbai: It was a scene straight out of any Bollywood block buster. Two policemen picked up a youth form his home on pretext of minor questioning at police station. They took him to the private bungalow of a minister, where over half a dozen goons thrashed the youth black and blue. The reason – his derogatory post on social media against their leader, who is also minister. One can think this can happen in a Bollywood movie or in utterly lawless land. But it has happened at Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai.
The minister who allegedly got Anant Karmuse, a resident of Thane abducted is Housing Minister of Maharashtra Jitendra Awhad. Surprisingly, it is also alleged that the two constables who picked up Karmuse from his house were posted for security at the bungalow of Awhad.
According to the FIR lodged at Vartak Nagar police station in Thane, four unidentified persons – two in police constable uniform and two in civil dress – came to the house of Karnuse at around 11.50 pm on April 5. The constables asked Karmuse to accompany them to the police station for a minor questioning and assured that he would be dropped back home in 10 minutes. The four persons snatched Karmuse’s cell phone and forced him in their vehicle.
The FIR says, there were six persons already in the white coloured SUV and four to five persons in another SUV waiting close by. The policemen took Karmuse to the bungalow of Minister Jitendra Awhad, instead of taking him to police station as claimed, the FIR says. Once at the bungalow, near Viviana Mall in Thane, around 15-20 persons started thrashing Karmuse with fiber sticks in possession of police constables posted on duty there. They allegedly said, it was punishment for derogatory post against Minister Awhad on social media.
When Karmuse apologised for the post and said it was in a fit of emotion, they called up his wife and forced her to delete it. Karmuse, in the FIR also alleged that Awhad was present all along while he was being thrashed and asked the policemen on duty to verify if he was involved in recce of his house. The goons then forced him to apologise and shot the video before Karmuse was taken to Vartak Nagar police station in a police vehicle.
“Minister presiding over such a brutal assault is a shame for the state like Maharashtra. But involvement of policemen is even more serious. It has put a big question mark on the integrity of Thane police. I demand strict action against the police officials involved in the heinous crime,” said spokesperson Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Keshav Upadhye.
When contacted Jitendra Awhad denied all the charges. “The incident did not take place at my bungalow, neither I was present when the youth was assaulted. He had been abusing our leaders on social media for over two years. The latest post abusing me was the tipping point which my supporters could not bear.”
