Taking a serious note of an alleged incident of police highhandedness against a youth in Subarnapur district, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has directed the State Home Secretary to initiate action in this regard.
It might be mentioned that Tarbha police station Inspector-in-Charge Srikant Kumar Tripathy had allegedly mercilessly thrashed a youth Arjun Nayak on May 7, 2017.
Arjun of village Ghantrapada of Tarbha block is working in a garage in front of the Old DIG Office in Sambalpur for the last five years. As his mother was ill he had come to his village on May 14. In this period, his uncle gave Arjun a Hero Honda motorbike for repair. After completing the repair he had gone for trial of the vehicle to Tarbha in the evening.
At that time, Tarbha PS IIC Tripathy was coming from opposite direction. He allegedly abused Arjun in filthy language for standing on the road and snatched the bikes keys. Then Arjun was dragged to the police station and when he simply asked what his fault was, the IIC rained blows and kicked him several times for which he had to be hospitalised.
later, he approached the Sambalpur DIG for justice. But when a letter was sent from the Sambalpur DIG’s office to the Tarbha PS this infuriated the IIC further and he became more reactive. He allegedly detained Arjun’s family illegally in the police station and threatened to book them in a dacoity case and sent them to jail if they do not produce Arjun in the police station within three days.
However, human rights activist Jayanta Kumar Das had written to the PMO (PMOPG/E/2017/0335541) and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) about the police highhandedness.
Das had urged the NHRC and PMO to conduct a judicial inquiry in the incident and register a criminal case against IIC Srikant Tripathy for disobeying the order of Supreme Court related to the arrest, detention and interrogation of any person (in DK Basu vs State of West Bengal(1997) AIR 1997 SC 610).
Following which, the PMO directed the Home Secretary to look into the matter and take appropriate action against Tarbha IIC.