Sunsari,Yatnapachivisthapit balakharu prahari niyantranma. Three boys of Itahari Municipality-2, displaced following the torture by the villagers on charge of stealing, have been taken into custody by the police at Inaruwa Bazaar on February 24 night. The boys, aged 11, 12, and 13 were tied to a bamboo pole and paraded by the locals at Aapgachhi Chok on February 21. Tarahara Police Station rescued the boys and handed them over to Itahari Area Police Office. They were handed over their parents on the same day. The boys left home few hours later. DSP Laxman Giri said that four boys including those three tortured were taken in from the Bazaar as they were found walking around mid-nihgt. Itahari APO’s Bidhyananda Majhi said that they could not take action against the perpetrators because the victims’ side had not filed a complaint adding they would initiate action after identifying the guilty through the pictures circulated in facebook and media. Locals Demand To Send Them to Reform Centre The villagers, however, have retorted to the uproar on the public punishment issue claiming that they were the ones who were victimized by the boys’ repeated stealing. The parents of the boys are daily wage earners. A local shop owner, Dambar Adhikari and some others said that the boys were into stealing things from villagers’ shops to kitchen gardens for the past three years as they had been neglected by their parents. Another local Shree Prasad Pokhrel said that though his neighbors were wrong to punish the boys this way, the boys were a real nuisance for the locals. He suggested that the boys’ placement in Child Reform Centre could be an answer. Shekha