Chennai: A young woman from Bengaluru created a flutter on Monday, storming into a press meet being addressed by transport minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar at Koyambedu mofussil bus terminus, alleging that she was harassed.
The police had pushed her and used their lathis to poke her when she was trying to rest for a brief due to sickness, she told the minister in a high-pitched tone.
“There is no safety, even in a public bus terminus for a woman. There is no freedom to spend little time to rest, if sick. Four police personnel, including two women, tortured me at Koyambedu bus stand,” she screamed, even as the embarrassed minister tried to pacify her.
Eyewitnesses said the minister told the girl to go to the police and make a complaint. She later identified herself to the media as Annapoorna, a research scholar from Bengaluru, and that she had come to the city to meet a relative at Saidapet.
Yelling out in English against the police personnel for harassing her in the name of public safety, she said, “I had severe migraine, vomiting and giddiness throughout the night. I just wanted to take lay down here for 10 minutes as I could not walk.”
“Police had asked me to either leave from there or come to the police station for an enquiry,” she said. She gave a written complaint to an official, who accompanied the minister. Despite repeated assurances by the minister to conduct a thorough enquiry, she did not calm down.
The minister was addressing the media, after inaugurating the special ticket booking counters, to meet the Pongal rush. Subsequent to the complaint, two police constables attached to the CMBT Police station were placed under vacancy reserve and were asked to report to the control room with immediate effect.
Deputy commissioner of Anna Nagar, Feroz Khan Abdulla told DC, “Two constables, whom she mentioned, were placed under vacancy reserve, so that they do not intervene in the enquiry.”
When asked about her whereabouts, the deputy commissioner said that he couldn’t disclose any further information. “She had her return ticket booked to Bengaluru by train later in the day. We are not sure if she decided to stayed back,” he added.
“Annapoorna was sleeping on the seat meant for passengers. We never used lathi to wake her up. It is a routine exercise by the cops to wake up those sleeping in concourse around 4am, so as to ease the passenger movement, which increases from 4.30 am,” said a police officer.
Terming her accusations wild and baseless, a senior police officer said a C.S.R receipt had been issued, and the complaint will be looked into based on the merits.
