Nagpur, August 04, 2021 (PPI-OT):A 37-year-old man allegedly died by suicide as he felt “insulted” after he was “beaten up by police personnel”, who accused him of making fake calls about an assault in his neighbourhood. The man, Mahesh Raut, apparently took poison some time after midnight, hours after the alleged assault by police.

Mahesh’s younger brother Shailesh told media persons that his brother had called up the police on Monday to inform them about an “assault on a mentally-challenged person by a neighbour”. “By the time the beat marshals from Hudkeshwar police arrived, the matter had subsided. The police, however, beat up my brother for making what they called a false call. Feeling insulted, he took poison during the night to end his life,” said Shailesh.

According to South Asian Wire, Raut is survived by his wife and two sons, who are five and two years old. The police have, however, claimed that they didn’t assault Mahesh. Nagpur Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar told Media, “Raut had made a call to the control room at 7 pm about a fight having broken out in Hudkeshwar area. Two beat marshals, Pradeep Alam and Kishor Shirad, went to the spot and enquired about the alleged incident.

They, however, found that nothing of the sort had happened. So, they called up the number from where the alert had come. There was no response from the number. But one of the persons in Raut’s neighbourhood had his number saved on his mobile phone. After identifying Raut as the caller, the man against whom the complaint was made went to Raut’s residence asking him why he had complained to the police. A verbal altercation ensued between the two. The allegation that the police assaulted Raut is totally false. Raut was unemployed for the last 3-4 months and felt insulted because he was exposed in front of the people of the area over the fake call he had made. That could be the reason behind his suicide.”

The police chief added, “The post-mortem report also reveals no assault of any kind on Raut.” “This was not the first time that Raut had called about the alleged assault by his neighbour. Earlier, too, he had made calls to police against that neighbour. And even then, police had found no substance in the complaint,” said Kumar.

According to Indian daily The Indian Express, Shailesh Raut told the paper, “The entire locality has seen the police assaulting my brother. If they are now claiming that they did not beat him, then they are trying to save themselves. The police had come to the area around 7.30 pm and beat up my brother, alleging that he had made a false call. But the fact is that our neighbour had beaten up a mentally-challenged man, who lives in our neighbourhood. Mahesh had taken pity on the mentally-challenged man and wanted to complain to the police about the incident. After being assaulted by the police, he felt slighted and committed suicide.”

Shailesh also refuted the CP’s claim that Raut had been unemployed for the past few months. “He was employed with Tajshree Honda, an outlet selling two-wheelers,” he said. Meanwhile, Hudkeshwar police have registered a case of accidental death. This is the second case of alleged police assault on citizens that has been reported in Nagpur in less than a month. Recently, a differently-abled man had died after being allegedly assaulted by police for dodging a nakabandi patrol and speeding away, after he was asked by the police to stop.

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