Drunk policemen thrash 17-year-old boy to death

Kalyan Tirthraj Salve never saw those blows coming. The 17-year-old resident of Ghatkopar was hanging around a paan shop with a cousin, Krishna, 15, and a friend, Shyamkumar, 24, opposite the Ambedkar Nagar slum in Vidyavihar around 10pm on Sunday when two drunk constables from the Tilak Nagar police station, Rashid Tadvi and Govind Lad, trooped out of a nearby bar and allegedly began assaulting the three.

“We had gone to the paan shop after dinner. While we were joking around, two constables came out of the bar and started attacking us. I ducked, but Kalyan suffered blows on the head and the back,” alleges Krishna.

Salve was admitted to the Rajawadi Hospital nearby around 10.30pm, where he succumbed to his injuries an hour later.

Dr Vidya Thakur, deputy medical superintendent of the hospital, refused to comment on the nature of the injuries. “The patient was gasping for breath when he was brought in and he was put on a ventilator. I cannot divulge the nature of the injuries as it has been made into a police case.”
Ramesh Gavit, senior inspector of the Tilak Nagar police station, says a case of murder has been registered against the two constables.

Salve’s body was sent for a postmortem to find out the cause of death. Tadvi and Lad were sent to the Nagpada police hospital for blood alcohol tests on Monday.
Earlier, the police had claimed that Salve had suffered from a convulsion at the paan shop and had hit his head when he fell down.