Chennai: Senior MRTS ticket examiner S. Premnath has alleged he was brutally beaten up by the police handling the jallikattu rioters at the Marina on Monday, despite his pleading innocence and showing them his official identity. The 26-year-old has a fractured arm and a bruised leg to show up as painful proof his misery as he recounted the trauma when DC met him at his house behind the Triplicane train station on Monday.
“I was at the Mylapore MRTS station when all the trains were cancelled that day. I got back home and was changing clothes when I heard some commotion.
Looking out of the window, I saw some boys running into our building with the police chasing them. Before we could realize what was happening, the police were all over us and they caught me too”, said Premnath, a national swimmer with many medals—one them from former CM Jayalalithaa. In fact, he had got his railway job through sports quota.
Premnath alleged he was taken to the Mylapore police station along with the other arrested youths, where he was brutally attacked by the police. “They hit me with lathi and when I used my hand to save my head, I sustained a fracture on the arm. All my pleading that I was innocent and had just got back home from work at the MRTS fell on deaf ears”, he said.
He said police filed FIR against him under 11 sections and lodged in the Puzhal prison after court remand. “Three days later, I got conditional bail for 30 days as I am a public servant; but then, the police told my wailing mother that nothing can be done now as the FIR has been filed against me”, said the young man, looking distraught and very bitter.
“My boy is innocent. His duty register will prove that. On that day, we searched for him through the day, went to five police stations and finally found him at the Mylapore station at about 10 pm. We pleaded with the police that Prem is innocent, showed them his ID card and said he was on duty and had just got back when this happened. They wouldn’t listen”, said the youth’s mother S. Shakeela.
"According to the investigating officer, he was one among the men picked up from the riot site at Nadukkuppam", said Mylapore Deputy Commissioner of Police V. Balakrishnan. Asked if Prem's attendance at work on that day tallied with his IO's claim, he quipped, "We are still investigating. In the course of the investigation, if that is true, it will come out." It now remains to be seen whether Prem's higher-ups at the railways will take up his case with the attendance evidence.
