A head constable in Andhra Pradesh was suspended for dereliction of duty on Monday after he was caught on camera, thrashing a woman at the Nagarampalem police station in the state's Guntur district.
District Superintendent of Police Vijaya Rao issued the suspension orders as head constable Venkateswara Rao's photo was widely shared on social media.
According to media reports, six sex workers were brought to the police station after a raid in Guntur and booked under sections of the Immoral Trafficking Act.
As the head constable spoke to the women, he picked up a fight with them and soon began thrashing one of them.
While the viral image suggests that the police officer in question beat up the woman with a slipper, an internal investigation stated that he had assaulted her with a rubber hunter.
“We have enquired with sub-inspector Rajasree, constable Merry and other staff at the police station and submitted a report to Guntur urban SP Ch Vijaya Rao. The head constable has been suspended,” DSP P Sowmya Latha told TNIE.
"The head constable was in drunk condition. Though he was not on duty, he picked up the women wanted in organised sex racket and brought them to the station around 11 pm on Sunday night. He picked up the hunter and beat one,” Nagarampalem police inspector Y Sridhar Reddy told Mirror.
Ironically, this incident took place in Andhra Pradesh's first model police station, which was sanctioned more than Rs 1 crore in 2017, when it was inaugurated by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
Then Andhra DGP Sambasiva Rao had also claimed that the male and female police officers at the station had undergone gender-sensitive training and aimed to indulge in people-friendly policing.
The women who were picked up, are presently in judicial custody after they were presented in front of a court.
The National Human Rights Commission has recommended that the arrest of women between sunset and sunrise should be avoided as much as possible and insists that women police officers should be present if the person or persons being arrested are women.