File.
| Photo Credit: S. Subramanium
The Madhya Pradesh Police have booked at least five boys in Shahdol district for allegedly beating up a 17-year-old Dalit boy, forcing him to act like rooster, and filming the incident.
According to the police, the incident took place on August 25 when a quarrel broke out between some juvenile boys of the same group of friends over an old dispute. The accused boys also allegedly forced the victim to act like a murga (rooster) and yell ‘kukuduku’.
Superintendent of Police (SP), Shahdol, Kumar Prateek told The Hindu that a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against the accused boys under relevant Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Mr. Prateek said the matter only came to light after the video surfaced on the Internet.
“After we came across the video, we identified the victim boy. However, he did not want any action in the matter, and it was only after counselling that he agreed,” the SP said.
In the video, the accused boys are seen punching and kicking the victim, who is seen sitting on the ground in a squatting position in a wooded area. “Bolkukuduku (say kukuduku),” some of the boys are heard yelling in the video.
“Three of the five boys have been identified by the victim and we are searching for all of them,” Kotwali police station in-charge Raghvendra Tiwari said.
“They all live in the same area and had some old dispute going on for a while. On that day, when the victim left on his motorcycle, some boys caught hold of him and beat him up,” he said, adding that the video may have been uploaded on social media by one of the accused, and that the police were tracing the source.