Two assistant sub-inspectors were on Friday booked in connection with a Dalit boy's death allegedly in police custody in Devipura village here even as his family claimed that police had demanded money for his release.
Post-mortem showed that Govind, 15, had died of hanging, a doctor said, a day after the teenager, who was taken to police station after being accused of pigeon theft, was found dead near his house under suspicious circumstances.
Assistant sub-inspectors Subash and Anil have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Deputy Superintendent of Police Venod Kumar said, without elaborating.
The two policemen have been suspended. However, no arrests have been made so far.
Some members of the 'Gadia lohar' community had on Wednesday approached the Sonipat police charging the boy with the theft of a pigeon and demanded appropriate action against him, the police said.
Govind's family, which staged a protest, here alleged that the police took the boy to the police station on the pretext of complaint of theft. They alleged police officials demanded Rs 15,000 to release him.
When the family members went to police station with money, they were told that he had been released and he might have committed suicide. The family members alleged that the boy was brutally beaten.
The police claimed there was a mark around his neck. Doctors, who conducted the postmortem, said that there was no injury mark on the body. "He died due to hanging," one of the doctors said.
The incident comes close on the heels of two Dalit children being burnt alive at Sunped village in Faridabad. In the victim's native Devipura village, his elder brother Gautam said that "police demanded money for the release of my brother".
"We found the body in our uncle's house adjacent to ours in the village the next day after police picked him (the boy) up on Wednesday," Gautam said.
Image: Locals and family members of the boy protest, claiming that the teen died in police custody. Photograph: ANI/Twitter
