Chennai: Prominent green activist Nisha Thota, 33, on Monday complained to police commissioner S. George that a lawyer abused and threatened her inside her Fomra Tribhuvan apartment at Nolambur under the pretext of discussing a problem of water leaking in her kitchen.
“He used vulgar language, called me a prostitute and threatened to harm me”, Thota, general secretary of Youth Exnora International, said in her complaint. She had lodged a similar complaint with the local police station soon after the incident on Saturday but there was no action, she told the commissioner at his office. He promised swift action.
Thota told DC that the Nolambur police would not register FIR on her complaint despite the Supreme Court directive that FIRs should not be refused to a complainant in distress.
“The station personnel only gave me a CSR acknowledging my complaint, but not the FIR. On the other hand, two cops came to my house on Sunday evening accompanied by lawyer Duraipandi against whom I had given the complaint and wanted to question me. I did not step out as I was unwell and besides, I was very scared”, Thota said.
She said her 18-month-old son Arko had witnessed the abuse and “is so traumatised that he developed fever and we have not eaten since that incident”. She said her car parked below had been smashed “possibly during Saturday night”.
She lives alone with her little son, shuttling between ChÂeÂnÂnai — where she has undertaken several green initiatives, inÂcluding participation in Abdul Kalam’s sapling-planting project — and UK where her husband Ajit is a senior official in an IT firm in Birmingham.
In a phone interview with DC, Ajit said he was shocked that “such things can happen to a woman, that too one who has pledged her time and energy to green projects”. The famÂiÂÂly fully supported her environment activism and she woÂuÂld not be cowed down by the abusive incident, he said, adÂdÂing that he had sent mails to Commissioner George and alÂso state home secretary seekiÂng protection for his wife and son.
When asked for his version, advocate Duraipandi told DC that he had accompanied the Fomra residents’ welfare association president Ram “to sort out the problem relating to waÂter leakage” in Nisha’s apÂartÂment. “An argument erupted and things got a bit heated up. She addressed me in singular and that got on my nerves”, he said.
