Manhandled by cops in mufti: Dalit activist

A Kathir, founding executive director of Evidence, said that a team of 15 policemen came to his Madurai office and threatened him for interfering in an inter-religious couple case. Narrating the case, Kathir claimed that he received a call on June 23 morning from an inter-religious couple — the youth a Dalit and the spouse Muslim — seeking protection, as they feared that the girl’s family might target them. The girl’s parents too seemed to have called the NGO and sought help to meet the youth. Both the families were reportedly ready for reconciliation.

“Then the girl’s mother and grandmother came to our office around 8.30 pm and the youth’s father was present at that time. While the talks were going on, the grandmother’s phone rang and it was supposedly a call from the police, who were speaking very rudely to her. 

Kathir said, “I intervened and spoke to them saying I will bring them to the office of the Commissioner of Police for legal action. But around 8.50 pm, Chakravarthy, a senior official from the Tallakulam police station, barged into my office with a 15-member team, who claimed to be police officers. But, only three of them were in uniform. This raised suspicion in us and we enquired if all of them were police personnel. Suddenly, they started manhandling the youth and grabbed the girl and took both of them to the police station.”

Kathir said that taking away a woman after dusk was a violation of the law and were no women personnel when they took the girl to the station. “Following this, I lodged a complaint under Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) Prevention of Atrocities (PoA) Act and under Section 3(1) (r), (s), as the cops abused me referring to my caste,” he said. Kathir added that he was planning to move the court if there was no action on his complaint. 

“I had met the Commissioner of Police, Madurai, on June 27 and lodged my complaint. If no action is taken against the erring officials, I will approach the court. Today, I am at the receiving end, tomorrow it could be someone else,” he concluded.

Speaking to DTNext, Commissioner of Madurai City, Shailesh Kumar Yadav, said that he had handed over Kathir’s petition to his subordinate officers to investigate and only after the investigation report was submitted, the next course of action could be decided. Till then he could not comment on the issue.