A minor rape surivivor’s parents in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, alleged that they were beaten up by the Inspector of the Anna Nagar All Women’s Police Station (AWPS) during the wee hours of August 31, while they were trying to report the crime against their 10-year-old daughter. The Chennai police denied the claims by saying that there was no evidence to prove the alleged case of police brutality. 

In a video that has been circulating on social media, the parents of the survivor alleged that they were both beaten up by the police. The mother in the video said, “The police twisted my hands and demanded I tell them. I asked what they wanted me to say. I told them it was what the doctors said at the hospital.” The mother also said that the inspector called her arrogant and threatened to file a case against her and put her behind bars for three years for not “raising her daughter properly.” The father of the survivor was also beaten up on the same day by the police. In the same video, the father of the survivor alleged, “They asked me if I know what ‘police beating’ is and then hit me.” 

TNM met the relatives of the survivor, who also repeated the same allegations. 

Vijaykumar, Joint Commissioner of Police for West Chennai, told TNM, “There was no CCTV inside the inspector’s room, but we checked the other CCTV footage and also inquired about it. We found no evidence of the police having beaten up the mother and the father of the minor survivor. We also checked if the inspector had spoken harshly to the family and verified that it wasn’t true. The inspector was just doing her job.” 

The minor survivor had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital by her mother on August 29. The doctors, however, revealed that the minor could have been raped and referred her to Kilpauk Medical College Hospital (KMC). After running tests, KMC informed the Anna Nagar AWPS police on the same day. Although the survivor had first named a neighbour, Satish, who delivers water cans in the area, she allegedly retracted her statement.

After the survivor retracted the statement, her mother insisted that it was the neighbour who had committed the crime and urged the police to take a complaint on August 30 when the police beat the girl’s parents, a relative of the family said.

A First Information Report (FIR) was filed against Sathish on August 30, but he was not arrested since the minor had reportedly retracted her statement against him. She then named a minor boy who is related to her as having sexually assaulted her two years ago, in 2022. Based on her statement, the police produced the juvenile boy before the Juvenile Justice Court magistrate. The boy has been released to his family.

The police, in a statement, said that the investigation is ongoing.