Crowd forces boy to pull down his pants, assaults him publicly; "No one will be spared" says SP

By barakbulletin On August 30, 2019 - 7:17 pm

Since early morning today, a video has gone viral on social media. The video features a young boy being forced to put his pant down by a group of people. As the boy pulls his pants down and goes naked, the group starts beating him with their chappals. There is hardly any audio for one to make out what is actually happening.

The incident took place in Hailakandi, right in front of the Rabindra Bhawan field/park. Many organisations condemned the act and urged the administration to conduct a detailed investigation as soon as possible.

A large section of people on social media alleged that the guy was asked to pull his pants down to prove his religious identity. They also alleged that it is a communal act and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

However, the outrage was limited to Facebook only. Superintendent of Police Hailakandi, Pabindra Kumar Nath in an interaction with Barak Bulletin informed that no complaint has been lodged in this regard. However, he added that Hailakandi Police has noted the video and they have decided to take it as suo motto and is preparing to conduct a thorough investigation. “We have seen the video and we are almost certain that it is not morphed or edited. It looks like this act took place in Hailakandi itself and we want to make it clear that no one will be spared,” said Nath.

At around 11:30 AM yesterday, the SP Office, Hailakandi received a call on the official landline. Nath informed that the caller said a boy and a girl is doing something indecent and explicit in the park. “We had immediately sent officials there and we did not find any assault or them doing anything explicit. They were very young (not minor) and so we decided to inform their guardians and let it end there. At that point of time there was no video,” informed Nath.

The police believes that the boy is the same, against whom they had received the complaint earlier in the morning. But as neither the boy nor the girl complained about the assault, they had no clue about the alleged harassment.

At this stage this looks like a clear case of moral policing. Great that the Hailakandi Police took it suo moto and started the investigation. Hope the Police will soon nab the culprits who assaulted a boy in the middle of the road and filmed the entire incident to make it viral later.