When Yash Shukla, an engineering aspirant was arrested in December for robbery, his parents had resolved. “After we arrested the boy, we assumed that some family member would come forward to bail him out. However, his angry father, a divisional engineer with MTNL, refused to come to the police station. We were surprised by his attitude and Shukla himself was shaken by the realisation that his family felt slighted by his arrest,” said assistant police inspector Prakash Patil, who was investigating the robbery case.

Shukla had taken up a job at his uncle’s firm after faring badly in his engineering entrance exams. He met a girl through a networking site and started a relationship with her and eventually quit his job. A few months into the relationship, Yash wanted to gift a diamond ring to his girlfriend and to procure money for it, he broke into his former office and stole a chequebook, some cell phones and a laptop. He then forged a signature on the cheque and tried to withdraw Rs 1.3 lakh but was arrested.

“For 3 days after I was brought to the police station, I kept to myself fearing that the police will treat me like a criminal. However, when I narrated the whole story to them, they sympathised with me. All the stereotypes that I ever had about the police have gone,” said Shukla.

“We could see that he was consumed by guilt and desperately needed a ‘second chance’. This was the first time the boy had committed a crime and we realised that it was an instance of flawed judgment. We spoke to the boy’s parents, convinced them that if they don’t support their child, the discouragement would push him into more serious acts and they agreed to give him another chance,” said Powai’s senior police inspector Rajdoot Rupawate.

Shukla, is now back with his parents, and wishes to forget the entire episode. “They convinced me that I should not throw away my life for love and told me that a qualified guy like me should devote my energies to a fruitful cause. They convinced my parents to let bygones be bygones and now I plan to study further and start an event fabrication firm,” he said.