Family of boy stages protest outside police station

Visakhapatnam: Alleging police harassment, family members of a 17-year-old-student, who was branded as thief and thrashed mercilessly by a group of ruling party activists, staged a protest outside IV Town police station in the city on Saturday.As per reports, N Ravi Kiran, a resident of Akkayyapalem area in the city, failed in some subjects in his first-year intermediate course. Fearing his parents would scold him, Ravi hid himself an abandoned car near his home on Wednesday night. Noticing that someone was hiding in the car, three persons who are said to be YSRCP activists pulled the boy out of the car and strip-thrashed him. They released him at around 11 in the night.The boy along with his family members lodged a complaint against the trio at IV Town police station on Thursday. They alleged that police initially refused to register a case and relented after hours of drama. “However, the police, instead of initiating action against the accused, registered a case against my son based on a complaint from the trio who said he stole a silver idol and some cash from the car and also damaged it,” the boy’s mother, N Lakshmi Kumari, alleged. IV Town police station inspector Srinivasa Rao said they registered cases against the trio as well as the boy.