Bengaluru Cops Assault Women at Police Station, 71 Out of 72 Transferred Days After Video Goes Viral

Bengaluru: In what could be a first in the history of Bengaluru police, 71 of the 72 personnel working at the Kumaraswamy Layout Police Station were transferred on Friday, days after three cops from the police station were caught assaulting women.

Taking a serious note of the incident, the department transferred the whole staff barring one. The police station had a total of 72 policemen, including a police inspector as head of the station.

Speaking to News18, K Annamalai, deputy commissioner of police, Bengaluru South division, said that the step was taken to clean up the image of the station and should not be considered a punishment transfer. The DCP added that three policemen in question are facing departmental enquiry.

This is not the first time the staff of Kumaraswamy Layout Police Station has been accused of misbehaving with public.

As per inside information, the video in which women were beaten up, was leaked by another group of policemen from the same station. The policemen who posted in the station from a long time has created groups and developed the history of harassing commoners, says a senior officer.

Last year, it was in news when a woman constable lost a rifle allotted to her. It was later found that the rifle had been stolen by her colleagues who wanted to get back at her.

Sources claimed that in case of January 20 incident, too, the video showing women being beaten up severely was leaked by another group of policemen from the same station.

A senior police officer told News18 that many old-timer cops posted in the station have formed groups and developed history of harassing the commoners.

A video of a policemen beating up women and pushing them out of a station allegedly for trying to "kidnap" their daughter had surfaced on January 20. The women had allegedly come to the station complain about their missing daughter.

DCP Annamalai had ordered for an enquiry and suspended assistant sub inspector Renukaiah with immediate effect.

However, the state’s Women Commissioner chairperson Nagalakshmi Bhai had defended the police action, saying it was the woman in the video who was at fault. The woman’s own daughter, identified as Tarakeshwari, had also blamed her. She had said that she was being abducted by her mother to write down property in her name and the policemen had only rescued her.

Some reports claimed that Tarakeshwari’s mother had gone to the police station to register a fake complaint against her daughter, where she allegedly assaulted women constables and that is when ASI Renukaiah pushed her out.