Bhubaneswar: In an instance of alleged police apathy and excess, an Army officer and his woman friend were subjected to a brutal assault by on-duty cops who they approached to register a complaint of road rage in the wee hours of Sunday.
According to reports, Delhi resident Gurvansh Singh, a Major attached to the 22 Sikh Regiment in Kolkata was in City to meet his friend Ankita Pradhan, a Patia-based restaurateur. Gurvansh told OrissaPOST that he and Ankita were travelling in a car late Saturday night when they had a close shave from a rashly driven vehicle. “Some 8-10 miscreants came out of the vehicle after I intercepted them to tell them to drive properly. They, however, misbehaved with me and my friend, before speeding off again” he said. Gurvansh said when they went to the Bharatpur PS to complain; the cops misbehaved with them and asked him to lodge a written complaint. “I begged them to nab the miscreants first instead of waiting for the written complaint. This angered them and they started misbehaving again,” he alleged. Gurvansh alleged that three woman cops dragged his friend inside a cell and disrobed her. “They tied her hands with a cloth and assaulted her repeatedly. When I protested, a cop thrashed me too,” he alleged, adding that he was eventually ‘rescued’ 6am by a few of his Army colleagues.
Meanwhile, when contacted, Bharatpur IIC Dinakrushna Mishra dismissed the allegations and said the duo misbehaved with the staff after reaching the police station in an intoxicated state. Mishra also claimed that Ankita turned violent and bit a woman SI on the hand. When asked if the police had any CCTV footage of the incident in their possession, Mishra said the police station didn’t have a CCTV set up. He said Ankita was booked under Sections 126 (2), 115 (2), 118 (1), 296 and 351 of BNS, and produced before a local court Sunday for remand, while Gurvansh was granted bail under Section 41 of the BNS.
