‘Police tortured us’: Family of deceased teen suspect in Jind rape-murder

The girl’s family has not been questioned yet but the boy’s relatives were detained for days.

Allegations of police torture, including electric shocks to private parts, surfaced in the case in which a 15-year-old girl was raped and killed and her 18-year-old “friend” found dead in Haryana.

Family members of the 18-year-old boy mourn after his body was found, in Kurukshetra, Haryana on Thursday.(Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

The boy’s body was found in a canal in Kurukshetra on Tuesday night, four days after the girl’s mutilated body was recovered in Jind district. Police are probing honour killings as one of the possibilities in the mysterious crime.

The girl’s family has not been questioned yet but the boy’s family members and friends were detained for days and were let off on Wednesday evening to attend the cremation. The Aadhaar cards of two of them showed they are minors. Many family members said they went in hiding until the boy was found dead.

The boy’s mother said: “My son was an ideal boy. He did odd jobs on holidays to pay his school fees. When his body was found, I thought he would at least be rid of the tag of a rapist and killer. I thought that would end the physical suffering of all in our family.”

Abhishek Garg, superintendent of police (Kurukshetra), had on Wednesday denied allegations of torture and said the suspects were only verbally questioned. Dheeraj Kumar, deputy superintendent of police (Pehowa), said police didn’t have the equipment to administer electric shocks.

The boy’s younger brother, a minor, who was detained on January 13, said: “They took me to Kurukshetra and stripped me. My hands were tied and they forced my head into a tub of water.” The boy, who needs help to walk around, said: “They rolled an ir- on pipe over my legs with one policeman standing on either sides.”

His 16-year-old cousin alleged that he was given electric shocks to his private parts. “When I said I didn’t know anything, they intensified the beating,” he said.

Another youth, who claimed to be a minor, said he was “tortured” only because he was the dead boy’s friend and classmate. “Phone call records showed he would often talk to me... The policemen were drunk when they beat me with rods,” he alleged.

The dead youth’s father and uncle too alleged they were tortured. “The water was ice-cold wh- en my head was forced into it. A policeman then sat on my back. I thought I would die... I felt most hopeless when they tortured my son...,” the father alleged.