kannur both of them have many things in common they are passionate about sports and their parents are ragpickers who migrated to kerala from tamil nadu to earn a living both of them won silver medals in the revenue district sports meet here and they did that after being lodged in the lockup of payyannur police station on charges of theft murthy 11 and thankaraj 14 who won the silver medals in 5000m and cross country race were detained by police on saturday while on their way back from a tailoring shop i would have won the first prize if the police had not tortured me and injured my right leg murthy told a news conference in payyannur on tuesday similar is the condition of thankaraj if the police had not harassed them thankaraj also would have won the gold said a karunakaran the physical education teacher at peralam aup school where both of them are studying he said murthy is now admitted to pariyaram medical college while thankaraj also has a pain in his legs he said he had sponsored a jersey to three students thankaraj murthy and abhirami all relatives since they have no money i decided to give them a jersey each and asked them to give the measurements at a tailoring shop on the way back police intercepted them and they ran away in fear but they were chased and nabbed he said the boys said they saw some plastic scrap on the way and were about to pick that for selling in the market when the police picked them up they were tortured by the police who accused them of stealing it it was after the intervention of local leaders including c krishnan mla that thankaraj was released on monday though murthy was released on saturday evening the police had on saturday detained two other tamil migrants selvan 16 and murugan 23 to whom the boys used to sell the rags they picked they were also released on monday police however said all of them were taken into custody on suspicion of theft and they were later released and the allegation of torture is baseless meanwhile human rights commission member k e gangadharan said there is no justification in the police action as both the boys are minors the commission would look into the allegations and action would be taken if it is found that the police have committed a mistake even if they were thieves the police have no right to keep them in custody or torture them