Update on the couple stopped by police at Sagar Nagar Beach
First of all, thank you to everyone who commented and reached out with advice on my previous post.
Yesterday morning, I went to Arilova Police Station with my friend.
When we entered the writer’s room, the officer spoke to us rudely and used abusive language. We were then made to wait for almost 3 hours.
According to what happened in front of us, the officer first demanded ₹15,000. After some discussion, he reduced it to ₹5,000. He told us to place the money inside my friend’s Aadhaar photocopy and hand it to him. He also threatened that if we didn’t pay, he would “drag this to court” and make the matter much more difficult for us.
At that point, I contacted an advocate and explained the entire situation. She immediately understood what had happened and, without charging us a single rupee, contacted the Circle Inspector (CI) to intervene.
After speaking with the CI, she advised us to pay ₹1,000 and collect the phone. We followed her advice, placed ₹1,000 inside the Aadhaar photocopy, and handed it over.
The officer looked at it, threw it aside, and angrily said in Telugu, “Pu d**** ki aina paniki vastada?”implying that ₹1,000 was worthless. The language he used was extremely vulgar and disrespectful.
We immediately called the advocate again. She once again escalated the matter with the CI.
When we went back, the officer said, “High Court lawyer nunchi call chepistunnav enti? Ippudu choodu em chestano.” He then called the advocate in front of us and told her that :
Madam this was a “counselling case,” that both the boy’s and girl’s parents had to attend, that the phone would not be returned until then, and that lawyers could not do anything in a counselling matter.
He also claimed that my friend and his girlfriend were found in an inappropriate situation, which is simply not true. They were just sitting and talking at the beach.
Later, the advocate called me back and said that since the police were treating it as a counselling matter, there was very little she could do at that stage. She advised us to pay ₹2,000, collect the phone, and leave.
Thankfully, after paying ₹2,000, my friend finally got his phone back.
I cannot thank that advocate enough. She stayed on the phone throughout, repeatedly spoke to the CI on our behalf, guided us the entire time, and never charged us any fee. Without her help, I honestly don’t know what would have happened.
While waiting at the station, I saw several other people some of them elderly being made to wait for long periods. It was heartbreaking to watch. As someone who witnessed this firsthand, it felt like ordinary people who didn’t know their rights were at a disadvantage.
For context, my friend told me that when the police first approached them at Sagar Nagar Beach, he politely said:
“Sir, we are both adults. We’re planning to get married next year. We need to speak to our parents about it. We just came to the beach to talk. We are not doing anything inappropriate, and we are not drunk. We’re about to leave.”
According to him, the officer responded:
“Naake rules cheptava? Choodu, nenu em chestano.”
The rest of the story is what I’ve shared.
Experiencing all of this firsthand really made me think on my way home. I couldn't stop wondering how people with limited financial resources or little knowledge of their legal rights would handle a situation like this. We were fortunate to find an advocate who genuinely wanted to help us without charging any fee. Not everyone is that lucky.