Solan, March 26
In a bizarre case, the allegations of extortion levelled by some schoolchildren turned out to be a case of them spending money, on the sly, on online gaming.
Following a probe, the Solan police have booked parents — who had alleged extortion from their wards by students — for voluntary causing hurt and wrongful confinement.
They have also been booked under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act for detaining students and beating them up, besides making their video that went viral last evening.
Solan Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh said as per the probe, it was found that without informing the police the parents detained some students illegally and beat them up in public besides abusing them and making a video.
On March 18, Urmila Verma, a resident of Matando village in Solan, had lodged a complaint that her son, a Class X student, along with a Class IX student, were threatened by some students from other schools. They also extorted Rs 2.45 lakh from them, she alleged.
A case was registered under Section 384 of the IPC by the police for extortion on the parents’ complaint.
Two of the minor students, whom the complainant had brought with him to the police post, were interrogated in the presence of their families.
After the interrogation they were handed over to their families.
During the investigation, it was revealed that all these students used to pool money and spend it on online games in a shop adjacent to the school.
These students also used to get recharge done for online games from cyber café located near the school. The owner of the cyber café corroborated these facts to the police.
On March 5 and 6 also, the said students had done recharge for ‘Free Fire’ game. Another youth had recently turned 18 and was involved in selling IDs for online games.
The police probe revealed that no one threatened the other students into shelling out money for online gaming and that they did it on their own, thus proving the allegation of extortion wrong.
“The investigation so far has not revealed any such evidence that the accused students have any connection with any gang or that they have been involved in drug smuggling,” the SP said.
No weapon was recovered from the students during police investigation.
The complainant had not provided details of how much money was taken from the children by the students nor did he produce any record in this regard.
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