Fourteen members of the Kuravar community, who are gypsies, including women and children, were alleged to have been tortured under illegal custody for nearly 63 days by the Thakkalai police in Kanyakumari district.
The men were charged with crimes they did not commit only because the police could not find the true perpetrators, said Henri Tiphange, executive director of People Watch, Madurai.
The women were reported to have been sexually abused by the police in front of their kin to force the men to “admit” crimes, he told reporters here on Wednesday.
The 14 members of the community from Mottamalai village in Madurai district went to Mandaikadu village in Kanyakumari district to earn a living on April 19. “After getting permission of the panchayat president we lived near a coconut grove. We earned money through sharpening knives in the surrounding areas,” said a victim of the police torture.
Life was peaceful till April 29. “A group of police personnel in plainclothes took all of us to Thakkalai police station,” she said.
The police team headed by sub-inspector Vijayan is alleged to have sexually abused the women.
“They removed my sari and forced me to stand only in my petticoat and blouse. Then a policeman harassed me by inserting his hand into my blouse claiming to be looking for jewels,” said the woman, breaking into tears. The ordeal did not stop there. The police tied her husband upside down from a ceiling hook and beat him and repeated the same with her father.
“After long hours of torture when my two-year-old children started crying in hunger, the policemen scolded me in a vulgar language and asked me to breastfeed my child,” she said.
When the woman refused, the police personnel are reported to have removed her sari and touched her private parts. “Unable to withstand the humiliation my husband confessed,” she said.
“Even when a habeas corpus petition was filed in this regard and was pending in the high court, the police continued to keep them in illegal custody in a small room inside the police station,” said Mr Tiphange.
He added that the police had booked five men of the community under false charges and remanded them in jail. The police did not even spare the children.
“The police officer forcefully tonsured my hair in front of my parents stating they will die soon,” a 12-year-old boy said.
The police took my mother and my aunt into a separate room. “Then I heard them screaming loudly. When my mother came out of the room, her sari was missing,” he claimed.
