TN: Cop shoots at teen suspect in police station

Chennai: In a shocking incident that appears to be a clear case of a gross human rights violation inside a police station, a 16-year-old suspect was accidentally shot by a police inspector using his service revolver in Neelankarai police station on Tuesday evening. Tha­m­eem Ansari, of Vettuv­ankani, near Neelankarai is fighting for his life in a private hospital in Sholinganallur.

Senior officers said that it was a clear case of sev­ere negligence on the part of the inspector while handling the firearm.

The boy suffered an injury on his neck and has been admitted to intensive care unit at Global Hospital. Senior officers disclosed that the careless manner in which in­spector R. Pushparaj was handling the gun cau­s­ed the incident. Pol­ice sou­rces said that the boy was picked up by the cri­me inspector’s team in co­n­nection with a theft in a temple in the same area.

Sources said that R. Pushparaj had kept the gun inside the boy’s mouth and was trying extract a confession from him. While he took it out, the gun went off injuring the neck of the boy.

“The boy is stable. He was caught red-handed at the temple and was bro­ug­ht to the station for enqu­iry. At that time the insp­ector may not be aw­are of the fact that he was a juvenile. The boy was inv­olved in similar cases la­st year as well. A department inquiry and RDO inquiry will be conducted to probe the incident,” said a senior police officer.

Some other police officers expressed shock over the incident noting that the use of a gun while questioning a minor boy was totally uncalled for. “Nobody uses a gun like this when dealing with juvenile offenders. We usually use guns without magazines to threaten hard core criminals. But definitely not at a 16-year-old boy,” said a senior police officer indicating R. Pushp­araj had certainly crossed all the limits in handling suspects inside the police station. 

Next: Thameem’s kin helpless, angry

Thameem’s kin helpless, angry

Srikkanth Dharasarathy | DC

Chennai: Theft suspect Thameem Ansari, 16, appears to be a familiar face for the Neelangarai police. They had picked him up at least thrice for different petty cases and let him off after some days. His last ‘outing’ was the short detention at the juvenile home in Kellys six months ago, according to elder brother Zahir Hussain, who is a plus-two student at the corporation school near their Vettuvankeni house.

The one-room, rented dwelling and its miserable residents, who include a mentally challenged sister, illustrate abject poverty as their 38-year-old mother Sabina Begum struggles to make both ends meet working as a dishwasher in a restaurant and doing odd chores in the neighbourhood.

She spent most of Tuesday praying outside the ICU at Global Hospital where Thameem was undergoing treatment for the bullet injury in the neck. Her husband Mohamed Hanifa died three years ago and left nothing from his earnings as an auto driver.

“They allowed only mother into the hospital. We are at home, tense and hungry,” Zahir mumbled, when this reporter visited the house late evening.

An aunt was sitting close by, cursing the cops and providing angry ‘bytes’ to the swarming TV crew. “The police officer responsible for this attack on innocent Thameem must be severely punished, however high his position might be,” screamed Jannath.

“How could the police do this to a child? Even a murderer is treated better and rules are followed,” she sobbed, while the neighbours, who had crowded into the tiny house, nodded in agreement. Some of Thameem’s friends, who sported a bemused look initially, expressed shock when they understood the gravity of the situation. “He lost interest in studies after class 8 and got involved with anti-social elements, indulging in petty thefts in the neighbourhood,” one of his friends said.

Next: Activists seek inspector’s arrest

Activists seek inspector’s arrest

Pramila Krishnan | DC

Chennai: The shooting of juvenile theft-suspect Thameem Ansari by an inspector at the Neelangarai police station has caused large-scale unrest among the Muslim community as also indignation among the rights activists. They demanded stern action against Inspector Pushparaj, who allegedly pulled the trigger after putting his service revolver into the terrified kid’s mouth to extract confession that he robbed a temple hundi on Tuesday. The police claim that the trigger went off by accident has not impressed the agitators.

“Senior officers are claiming that Inspector Pushparaj was cleaning his revolver when it slipped from his hands, hit the ground and went off. We do not believe this story. The inspector should be arrested and prosecuted for attempt to murder”, said Abdus Samad, general secretary, TMMK, who led a protest outside the Neelangarai police station.

Mr A Devaneyan, director of rights group Thozhamai, explained that if a suspect is below 18 years of age, he should be first produced before the juvenile justice board before being questioned. “The boy should not be taken to a traumatising environment such as the police station. In fact, the officer questioning him should be plainclothes and not uniform as that would scare the kid.
The juvenile justice law has stipulated all this only to ensure that the juvenile suspect’s interests are protected even in a difficult conflict with law”, he told DC.

“Threatening a suspect with gun to elicit confession can be accepted only in movies and not in real-life police station”, Devaneyan said, adding, “It is not enough if the inspector is transferred or suspended; he must be arrested and charged with attempt to murder”.

“We fervently hope that the kid survives”, said the rights activist. “Not just for the sake of the boy’s poor family but also for the good of the inspector and his family”.