Power plant’s engineer, staffers arrested for beating up villagers: Cops

An assistant engineer and two other staffers of a thermal power plant in Baran district near here were arrested for allegedly beating up two villagers after abducting them from a jungle and holding them captive inside the plant premises, police said on Sunday.

The management of the Chhabra Super Critical Thermal Power Plant (CSCTPP) at Motipura under Bapacha police station in the Baran district, however, contended that the duo was caught inside the plant premises while stealing various articles from there.

Terming the arrest of its engineer "illegal", the CSCTPP management said the engineer had no role in the episode and was arrested due to political pressure despite the issue involving only security staffers of a private agency and villagers.

The police identified the arrested accused as plant's Assistant Executive Engineer Kallaram Meena, his driver Golu Kevat and private security guard Vikram Sharma.

Bapcha police station's SHO Mahendra Yadav said that the trio was arrested on the complaint of Jainarayan Lodha of Sevan Khedi village and Giriraj Lodha of Hanuvat Kheda village who alleged that they were abducted by the engineer and four-five other men of the plant from a jungle where they were grazing their cattle.

The two said they were abducted nearly a week ago in a vehicle and confined to the plant premises where they were stripped of their clothes and beaten up mercilessly and were also robbed of Rs 5000, the SHO said.

The SHO added that the complainants approached police only after video footage of the week-old assault incident went viral.

The SHO said the police will soon nab other people involved in the assault. After the video clip of the incident went viral, local BJP MLA Pratap Singh Singhavi condemned the incident in a social media post on Saturday night and demanded stern action against the accused.

The thermal plant management too has lodged a complaint of burglary against the villagers. The incident occurred amid the rampant reports of thefts from the plant premises, surrounded by a 14-km boundary wall and round-the-clock deployment of security guards with the police generally staying indifferent to the complaints of theft by the plant management, the plant's Chief Engineer C P Himanshu said.

Terming the engineer's arrest as illegal, Himanshu said the engineer holds only administrative responsibility of the private security agency and he had nothing to do with the issue of the beating up of the two villagers.

Himanshu also alleged political protection to the thieves of the area and police inaction despite repeated complaints against them.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)