Court grants bail to CRPF soldier Sachin Sawant

Belagavi: The 1st JMFC court in Belagavi’s Chikkodi on Tuesday, April 28 granted bail to arrested CRPF soldier Sachin Sawant.

Sawant was arrested on charges of assaulting an on-duty policemen on April 23 in the taluk. A case was filed against the CRPF soldier under sections 353,323 and 504 of the Indian Penal Code and section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act 1987.

In a video of the incident which went viral on social media Sawant is seen washing his bike when a police team reached the spot and started beating him up for not wearing a mask during the lockdown. They allegedly manhandled and ill-treated, before his family members and paraded to the police station barefoot, where he was kept in chains and handcuff.

Taking objection to the ‘ill-treatment’ meted out to its Cobra Commandor, CRPF ADGP Sanjay Arora wrote a letter to the Karnataka police demanding an investigation and also said that the ‘unpleasant’ situation could have been avoided if the Karnataka police had taken CRPF hierarchy into confidence before making the arrest.

Meanwhile Karnataka DGP Praveen Sood has ordered a probe into the incident.