36 friends of Binu have no cases against them

On the night of February 6, police teams had rounded up 75 persons, including 2 minors, from a lorry shed on Outer Ring Road in Mangadu police limit where they all were celebrating the 50th birthday of gangster Choolaimedu Binu. The minor boys were let off the next day, but legal proceedings were initiated against 69 of the 73 persons, while the rest four were cited as bind over cases – those who broke the terms of the peace bond they entered into with the police. 

All the of them were initially booked under unlawful assembly because they had gathered in a place with lethal weapons. Police had then segregated all the history-sheeters as per their crime history and station-wise cases. 

But as they probed the history of these persons, the police teams found that nearly half of them had no previous crime records. Though they were all sent to jail next day, a good number of them who had no history of crimes, are being given bail by courts, police sources noted. Those who managed to wriggle out of the messy situation through legal process included college students, lawyers and fake scribes. 

“It is a reasonably fair move because police are not trying to put up false cases and implicate them,” an activist from PUCL noted, adding that the police were handling a completely new situation when they gate-crashed the birthday party and rounded up the suspected rowdy elements. 

“So, it is natural for them to believe that all those present at the venue were linked to various gangs,” he added. 

Binu, the birthday boy, had escaped from the scene on that night, but surrendered to police a week later on Tuesday.