The Hindustan times, June 10, 1999
Cops strip seven children, force them to parade
Gurgaon, June 9 (Abhay Jain)
POLICE PERSONNEL stripped seven children and forced them to parade in the city streets today.
The only fault of the children was that their ball had landed inside the residential compound of an assistant sub-inspector, Haryana Police, while they were playing cricket.
According to the parents of the seven children, aged between 7 to 11 years, Bharat, Sandeep, Jitendra, Raju, Pawan, Ravinder and Sunil were playing cricket in their colony, Om Nagar on June 1. While playing, their ball fell into the premises of assistant sub-inspector Dayanand's house. The children collected their ball from Dayanand's residence and went away to their homes.
However, the next day, the ASI along with two other policemen, Raj Kumar and Ram Charan went to the houses of these seven children and took them to the police station at Khandsa road, near Om Nagar. There, the police personnel beat the children and stripped all of them, allege their parents. "When we reached the police station and objected to their action, they abused us and threatened to beat us for allowing our children to play on the street", they said.
The parents further alleged that the police took all the seven children without clothes and asked them to parade in the streets of Om Nagar and Shanti Nagar. Afterwards, they again took the children to the police chowki and forced them to lift garbage from the nearby areas.
The parents allege that they were abused by the police and asked not to reveal this incident to anybody. They were threatened with dire consequences if they opened their mouths, said the parents.The policemen then charged Rs 30 from each of them and forced them to sign on blank papers. Only after that, they allowed us to leave the police chowki on that unfortunate day, they said.
Later, supported by Ms Shiksha Devi, Municipal Councillor from the area and Mr Pratap Singh, city unit president of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the parents of the affected children went to the 'Open Darbar' chaired by the Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon, yesterday and complained against the policemen.
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