Teach my son a lesson: Dad tells cops

Mumbai: With reports of missing children crowding newspapers over the past days, it was understandable why the Versova-based Pandeys were distraught after their son didn't return home the entire night. If only they knew that their truant teenaged son, given to wanderlust, had got itchy feet again and had taken off with his friends, to make a dramatic entry at the police station where his distraught father had gone to file a missing person's complaint. The father, upset with the son's antics, and sceptical of his explanation, told the cops to discipline him in an appropriate manner. In their turn, the men in uniform asked the boy to do a chicken squat.

On Tuesday night, Ramesh and Savita Pandey were preparing to have dinner when they realised their son, who is all of 13 years, wasn't around. They started looking for him but couldn't locate him. They ran helter-skelter through the night, calling up relatives and waking up neighbours, but no one had any idea of his whereabouts.

The search lasted until daybreak, but their son was still missing. The parents were worried, thinking he may have been kidnapped.

So at 11 am on Wednesday, Ramesh reached the Versova police station to file a complaint. About to relate the tragedy to the cops, he was surprised to see his son walk into the station. Incidentally, around the time that Ramesh arrived at the police station, his son had wandered back into his house, where his teary-eyed mother had been waiting anxiously. Relieved, Savita gave him a good spanking. He told her that he had gone to the Siddhivinayak Temple with his friends, walking all the way to Prabhadevi. She told him to go to the police station to prevent his father from filing the complaint. At the police station, Ramesh was just about to lodge the report when he made an entry. 

The Versova police officials had a good laugh when the boy started apologising to the father in a nervy tone, explaining to him how he had gone to visit Siddhivinayak Temple with his friends. Fed up with his son's waywardness and unmoved by his excuse, Ramesh requested the police to teach him a lesson. The police handed a harmless punishment to the boy. They made him do a chicken squat for 10 minutes, whacked him on the back, and asked him not to trouble his parents.

A police constable from Versova police station said, "The boy had gone missing in the night. His father had come here to file a missing complaint. When the boy arrived, his father told us to punish him, saying he does not listen to them and roams around instead of studying."