Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 24
An incident on Friday last in which three children were at the receiving end of physical abuse will certainly leave the district police setup of Dimapur red-faced. Three boys aged 11, 12 and 14, were meted out brutal beatings by some individuals and the police on the accusation that they stole a dog of the proprietor of a well-known restaurant/lounge in Dimapur on the evening of October 22.
The incident got the attention of child rights activists and NGO workers based in Dimapur, who were not only disturbed at the way the juveniles were treated but more so by the unprofessional way the police handled the case.
According to the social activists, the three boys are wards of Assisi Centre for Integrated Development, Dimapur – a learning centre for underprivileged children under the aegis of the National Child Labour Project. Narrating the turn of events on Sunday, the activists said to have learned of the unfortunate happening today. The three children, who were physically abused, are now under their care. The children recounted their ordeal to gathered media persons.
According to the children, they had gone to a ‘hotel’ located at the top floor of a building at Circular Road on the evening of October 22 at around 6:00 pm. They had gone up to the ‘hotel’ to collect discarded cartons and reusable bottles which, the boys said, they usually do.
However, that evening they were caught by an attendant of the ‘hotel’ who accused them of stealing the proprietor’s pet dog. They were accused by the attendant that the children were seen in the building around the time the dog went missing, the boys said. The dog is said to be an expensive foreign breed. It reportedly went missing at around 4:00 pm earlier that day.
They were then detained and the proprietor informed. The boys said they were tied up, beaten and then handed over to the police. They were later taken to the East police station at around 7:00 pm who forwarded them to the Women Cell, Dimapur. During the process the boys said they were beaten by sticks, both at the East PS and then at the Women Cell. They were locked up overnight at the Women Cell.
The following day, Saturday, the boys were again taken into custody by the people who had handed them over to the police earlier, for further ‘interrogation’. After they were released from the lockup, the boys said, they were taken to a house. There they were kept in captivity the entire night and released only on Sunday near about noon. The youngest of the three was the one who suffered the most. The eleven year-old said his hands were tied from behind by steel chains, said to be of the missing dog.
The next revelation will have people cringe with horror. The lower part of his left leg was then let gnawed by one of the owner’s other pet dogs. The toe of his left foot was also stamped sore by the hard service boots of an IRB ‘jawan’, the boy revealed. The boy, it turned out, made an effort to escape on Sunday morning. During which the IRB ‘jawans’ on patrol entered the scene.
Revealing their bruises, they boys said that their upper arms, the backs of the shoulder and the chests were also jabbed by the edges of ball-point pens and by the burning ends of ‘bidis’ (local rolled-smoke) and cigarettes by the IRB ‘jawans’ who were reportedly called during the escape bid. Their children’s bodies bear tell-tales signs of the torture they were meted out. All these were done to make the boys confess to their reported stealing of the dog, the activists further surmised. During the whole ordeal, the boys said that they were hardly given food except water.
Another aspect of the whole incident that had the rights activists peeved was the insensitive way the police handled the situation. Any case of a juvenile in conflict with the law, one child rights advocate said, must be referred immediately to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) and Child Welfare Commission (CWC). It is clearly mentioned in the Juvenile Justice Act, the activist reminded. Moreover, no child accused with a crime or not, can be kept in police lockup, the activist pointed out. “Why weren’t the issue brought to the notice of the JJB or the CWC by the police”, was the activists’ unanimous question.
