26-yr-old thrashed, paraded naked in Tarn Taran village

AMRITSAR: A 26-year-old native of Amritsar was thrashed and paraded naked by residents in Balachak village of Tarn Taran district on Tuesday evening.

The grave crime came to light after five video clips of the incident went viral on social media on Wednesday. The victim Paramjit Singh, of Gurwali village, was caught by Balachak residents, who claimed that he was in their village to meet a girl, something they did not approve of. In one of the clips, the victim is being beaten up by nearly a dozen men, who are forcibly removing his clothes. In another clip, the victim, who is naked, is seen sitting on grass in fully naked condition with a man grabbing his hair. Others around are slapping him.

The voice-over to this clip says, “This man has been caught as he tried to give his contact number to a girl.” Another voice adds, “Why did you want to give your number to the girl. Will you do this again?” Later, the naked victim is made to sit on a bike and ride it for some distance.

SSP Vikramjit Singh Duggal said after their preliminary investigation had shown that the victim had gone to the village to meet a girl.

Chatiwind SHO Sardool Singh said, “When the video surfaced, we thought, that the incident had taken place in Chatiwind. I went to the victim’s home and also met his family members, who claim that their son has a memory problem and thus might have lost his way.”

Tarn Taran senior superintendent of police (SSP) Dhruv Dahiya said a man named Sandeep had been rounded up in connection with the case registered on the complaint of the

vicim’s father Sukhdev Singh.

“My son had gone to Tarn Taran for an errand. When he reached near Daburji power station, he was thrashed and paraded naked by some persons. The accused recorded a video that later went viral,” he claimed.

Unidentified persons have been booked under Sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 500 (defamation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 67-A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc) of the IT Act at Tarn Taran city police station.