GHAZIABAD: A group of five-six men beat up two youths on the suspicion that they were thieves in the Teela Mod area of Ghaziabad.
Videos of the incident went viral on the internet, after which Ghaziabad police arrested one of the men.
According to police, they got to know about the May 31 incident through social media and later received a complaint from the brother of one of the victims.
The videos show the men kicking and slapping the two youths. In a video accessed by TOI, the men appear to be talking to the two accused, asking them whether they had taken drugs.
In another video, they undress the two and thrash them with belts.
The incident appears to be happening in a room, where the victims may have been held captive and beaten up for hours.
Speaking to TOI, Anshu Jain, the circle officer of Sahibabad, said that the police arrested an accused and are trying to identify the other culprits.
“Police took cognisance of the incident from the videos, which have gone viral on social media. The victims, both natives of Baghpat, are truck drivers and work close to the area where the incident took place,” said Jain.
The arrested accused is a building materials supplier, Asif. “It was Asif’s office where the victims were taken and thrashed. During interrogation, Asif told police that a theft occurred at his office a couple of days ago, and they suspected the two truck drivers. On May 31, the accused allegedly spotted the two truck drivers again, engaging in suspicious activities near the office,” said Jain, adding that the accused took them to the office room and thrashed them.
On the basis of the complaint filed on Friday, police have registered a case at the Teela Mod police station against five persons, two of whom have not been identified, under sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting) and 307( attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). “More arrests will be made soon,” said Jain, adding that police will add more sections to the FIR as and when other facts come to the fore during their investigation.
