The Hindu : Karnataka News : Four women taken into custody in Davangere

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Four women taken into custody in Davangere

Staff Correspondent

Police say they suspected them to be naxalites

DAVANGERE: Four Mahila Jagruthi Vedike members, whom the police suspected belonged to a naxalite group, were taken into custody at Gandhi Circle here on Monday. After interrogation, the police took them to the tahsildar in the evening, where they had to execute a bond that they would not disturb `public order.'

Those taken into custody were Manjula, Mallige, Indira and Gowri. Manjula, against whom cases are pending in Shimoga, had secured bail from the court.

The four women had convened a press conference in the morning to clarify that they were not naxalites or naxalite sympathisers and the ideology of the Mahila Jagruthi Vedike was not in consonance with that of naxalite organisations.

After the press conference, some police personnel, including women constables, who were not in uniform, followed the four women in a car and motorcycles and took them into custody at the busy Gandhi Circle. The women asked the police personnel for identification, as none of them were in uniform.

After a brief argument, the women were forced into a private Ambassador car in which the police had come.

The Superintendent of Police, Alok Kumar, told presspersons that four women had been taken into custody, and two of them were arrested.

The two arrested women were asked to execute a bond of good behaviour, and they too would be released after executing a bond.

He agreed that the police had committed a mistake by going in civilian clothes in a private car and failing to establish their identity. Sometimes it is necessary to go in civilian clothes, but the police should have established their identity. He said he will conduct an enquiry and take action if the women give a written complaint to him.

He said that the four women had not made their activities clear and the department had information that they had indulged in some naxal activities.

In the evening, the four women told presspersons that they would write to the National Human Rights Commission about what they termed the harassment by, and high-handedness of, the police here. Manjula said that vedike representatives would soon meet the Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, and the Director-General of Police and apprise them about the way in which the police had taken them into custody.

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