Madurai: After knocking the doors of Police and Civil Society members seeking help, ‘Kakoos’ documentary film maker Ms. K Divya Bharathi has now approached the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court to quash the FIR filed against her based on a complaint filed by a member of Dalit outfit Puthiya Tamizhagam (PT).
Baskar Maduram belonging to scheduled caste (Devandrakula Vellalar) in his complaint filed at Othakadi police station alleged that Divya Bharathi had depicted the members of his community as involved in manual scavenging in the documentary, and that message has triggered a rift between two groups of people. The police had registered an FIR against Divya on August 3, under section 153 (A) and 505 (1) (b) of IPC r/w 66 F of Information Technology Act, 2000.
Stating that the allegations made in the FIR, even it taken at their face value, it did not even prima facie constitute any offence or make a case against her, Divya said, adding, she produced the documentary film with a sole intention to create awareness among the public against this social sin and draw the attention of the government about widespread prevalence of manual scavenging despite the government having enacted the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 to abolish this practice.
In the said film, she had ocumented the people belonging to both SC (Arunthathiyar), SC (Pariyar) and SC (Devandrakula Vellalar) as being involved in the work of manual scavenging. Moreover, it was not the words of the petitioner, but was the government data stating that members of SC (Devandrakula Vellalar) were involved in the work and people belonging to that community also stated so in the film.
It was recorded by the petitioner what they had stated and it was not stated with any intention to create enmity between groups. But some members of SC (Devandrakula Vellalar) claiming allegiance to PT, abused and threatened her with dire consequences over phone and social media citing the documentary, she said.
Even after she had filed a complaint with the Madurai city police with call details and social media messages, no action has been taken still date, said Divya in the petition.
Seeking to stay all further proceeding of the FIR against her, the petitioner asked the High court bench to call for the records pertaining to the case and quash the same.
