Rave party arrests: Punishment before proof

Several of those who were picked up from the Hotel King's premises in Juhu on Sunday night on suspicion of doing drugs were actually attending a friend's birthday party at a different hotel in the same building.
Paras Singh was one of the birthday party-goers. "I don't know why we were picked up for celebrating a friend's birthday. My parents had to wait outside the (Azad Maidan) police station till noon.I feel ashamed to face them now," he said.
But it was not only Singh who had a lot of questions for cops. Many of the youngsters and their relatives, who had come to Azad Maidan police station on Monday to take them home, had similar queries.
"Why should youngsters, some not yet out of their teens, be paraded in front of television cameras even before their guilt has been proved?" the family friend of one of the detained youngsters asked. "The boy's father is abroad and there is a lot of tension at home. We spent the whole night looking for him and the call from cops came only at 10 am on Monday. Is this the way we should treat youngsters whose guilt has not yet been proved?" he asked, adding: "Why humiliate young people who have not committed any crime and scar them for ever? Is drinking beer a crime?"
Most of the youths did their best to avoid being "branded". Some pulled their T-shirts and skirts over their faces, leaving their torso or lower limbs bare. Some used newspapers to cover their faces and then made a couple of holes on the paper to see their step. It was, as one of their parents observed, not a very pretty picture.
There was a lot of teenage defiance as well. Several of the youngsters showed the middle finger to newspersons and a couple of them got into scraps with TV crew, again not making a very good picture.
Most went out silently in the afternoon, after spending more than 12 hours at a police station as they waited for the formalities ��� the blood and urine tests and the paperwork ��� to be over. But there were some who spoke their mind. "We are not terrorists. But these cops behave as though we are behind some anti-national activity," a 20-year-old said from behind his cover.
Many of the youngsters said it was the experience of spending the night at a police station that was nightmarish. "We were detained for over 10 hours and had to spent the entire night at the police station. This is blatant violation of our fundamental rights," IT professional Suhas Sharma, one of the 231 people picked up, said.
Some admitted there were drugs going around in the party. "But I can assure you most came for the music. I am an avid rocker and never do drugs but, after this detention, even my parents will think I am into drugs," another IT professional, Rahul Suryavnashi, said.
"I do not understand why the police detained us for so long. They could have taken our blood test on Sunday night itself and let us go. We are not hard-core criminals who will run away from the city," Suryavanshi said.
(Some names have been changed to protect the identity of youngsters, many of whom are students.)
viju.balanarayanan@timesgroup.com
vijay.singh6@timesgroup.com