Bengaluru cops ask Kerala boys “are you from Pakistan?”

On a mundane night in SG Palya, east Bengaluru, when a group of lads stepped out of their home for tea they were unaware of the trauma awaiting them.

According to a news report in The Times of India (TOI), while Ikram (name changed) 18 and his two friends left their flat at 1 am for tea, his elder brother, Saif (name changed) and two others stayed back.

After a while, Saif heard his younger brother shouting for help. Ikram and his friends were stopped by two police personnel, who wanted to know what the boys were doing on the road so late. Saif 21 approached the police and asked what the issue was. The cops demanded their ID cards, on learning that saif was Muslim one of them asked if he was a Pakistani.

The youth said cops also told them that they had arrested a few terrorists recently. “I was perplexed as to why they needed to tell us all that,” the TOI report quoted Saif as saying.

Saif was shocked and asked again what the problem was. Later the police asked the group to hand over their phones.

“Even as Ikram’s friend showed them his phone, the cops tried to snatch it. At that moment, I asked them if they have a warrant to check our personal belongings. My question appeared to tick off a cop, who immediately turned to me and said that if I needed a warrant, I should come to the police station,” said Saif, adding that they kept asking if they were Pakistanis.

Meanwhile, one of the youngsters started filming the incident oh his phone, which agitated the cops. One of the policemen asked him to stop, the video showed the person recording it saying, “sir, it is a public place. I can record.”

Within a few minutes, the policemen called four more cops The quartet turned up with lathis and forced Saif and two of his friends into the patrol car. Around 1.30 am, they were taken to SG Palya Police station.

The cops initially spoke to them nicely. “But within seconds, the scene changed, and a policeman came into the room with a lathi. I thought it was just to scare us, but then he began hitting us,” Saif recalled. “Three cops took turns to beat us until my local guardian came to the police station at 3.30 am,” he added.

With the incident going viral on Instagram, DCP (Whitefield) MN Anucheth, who is in charge of the south-east division, ordered an inquiry into the case. “I learnt about the incident through social media. I have ordered the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Mico Layout to conduct an investigation and submit a report,” said Anucheth.

Close on the heels of the arrest of terror suspects in Bengaluru and elsewhere in Karnataka, police have issued notices to the apartment associations to reveal the details of occupants.

It states that if the association finds anyone suspicious, it needs to immediately inform cops.

According to the police many apartments are seeking contact numbers, photos and email IDs, not just of occupants, but also of visitors.