Viral video of GRP inspector beating lady, grandson forces MP CM to act

In October 2023, Aruna Vahane, inspector in-charge of Katni GRP (Government Railway Police) station 350 km from Bhopal, was caught assaulting Deepraj Vanshkar and his grandmother, detained on suspicion of theft. A video clip that went viral earlier this week shows her beating the old woman and the teenager with a stick after shutting the door. A fuller clip shows her men slapping the teenager and pushing him around. Vahane is seen seated in her chair.

The slaps apparently did not satisfy her and she took matters into her own hands. Having ordered the men to leave the room and shut the door, she is seen to rain blows on both detainees with a stick. The elderly lady and the teenager, who look frightened and meek, try to ward off the blows while pleading with her. However, in the absence of any audio recording, it is not immediately clear what they said in their defence.

As the video went viral, netizens pointed out that the woman was a Dalit and evidently poor; had she been from a higher caste, the policewoman would not have dared beat her up, many of them felt. Several lawyers reacted by pointing out that police need to be sensitised and police reforms are urgently needed.

A few sarcastically asked if President Droupadi Murmu, who had yesterday voiced her horror at the rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata, would react and say, “enough is enough”. Veteran journalist and columnist Sucheta Dalal pointed out that a call from Rashtrapati Bhavan would have galvanised the moribund NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) into action.

SP and SP railway police, Katni, reacted by stating that the teenager’s father Deepak Vanshkar was a repeat offender and had 19 cases pending against him. He is accused of stealing jewellery from railway passengers. His mother Kusum and son Deepraj, they claimed, helped him in selling the stolen jewellery.

The explanations did not cut much ice even after the police claimed that stolen jewellery had been recovered from the duo. Questions were asked about what gave the police the right to beat them up. Alarmed at the growing outrage, chief minister Mohan Yadav, claim sources in the BJP, was advised to take immediate damage control measures.

The video footage from also raised several inconvenient questions such as, how was the footage ‘hidden’ for so long? Could it mean that no superior officer had inspected the footage until now? Is there a system in place? Is it possible that superior officers had seen the footage but dismissed it as ‘routine’?

News agencies quoted GRP SP Katni stating on camera, “We have seen the original video; there is a CCTV camera installed in the office here and on the basis of that, TI Aruna has been suspended. Along with her, five other police personnel seen in the video have also been suspended and the investigation will be done under the supervision of DIG Railways Monika Shukla…”  Earlier SP Katni Abhijeet Kumar Ranjan had added to the outrage by telling the media that police was trying to ascertain the authenticity of the video.