Police chop hair of kids bunking classes in Kerala

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The News Minute | January 17, 2015 | 9.10 pm IST It seems the Thrissur city police in Kerala has too much free time at hand or maybe Thrissur has no crime. (Wishful thinking on our part). Perhaps that's why the police are actually leading an operation asking kids to cut hair. Yes, you read that right. As part of operation 'vidyalaya' by Thrissur police, to monitor absentees from schools, the cops are also getting hair chopped. The other day, police ordered a group of students, who roamed around in the city, to cut their hair, following their parents’ complaints. Police say they found the group while enquiring into a complaint by parents to Operation vidyalaya special branch that their son was not attending classes at school. The police enquiry following the complaint revealed that many school going boys were ganging up and bunking classes. “We found that the student was roaming in the city with an 8 member gang and not attending classes. We subsequently found many groups of students like this” an officer at Thrissur city police station said. In fact, student groups who call themselves freaks are common in Kerala. Entry into a freak gang are for those who have unusual hairstyles, wear low waist pants, liberal dose of accessories and a sports bike. “We do not go in search of freaks and force them to cut their hair, but if we get complaints from parents or teachers, we will act,” the officer said.According to the police in the past one month they have found three student groups of this kind. Now if police facilitating hair cuts isn't strange enough, they are also seizing mobile phones. V. Radhakrishnan Nair Special Branch Assistant commissioner Thrissur told The News Minute that these student groups were addicted to alcohol and some use drugs. “Mobile phones were seized from these groups. They were wandering around the city cutting classes. They sometimes become victims of drugs and alcohol," he said. Operation Vidyalaya, critics point out, is also another form of moral policing. But amongst school authorities and parents, it is popular with police enabling them to even contact through phone, SMS, mail and WhatsApp messages. Tweet

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