UP IN ARMS: Actress and activist Pooja Bhatt briefs the media on harassment meted out by the Punjagutta police to Surekha Sumitran and Shyamala Sumitran (left) in Hyderabad on Wednesday.- PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: The Woman Rights Protection Group (Mumbai) and the Progressive Organisation for Women (POW) have demanded action against the Punjagutta police for allegedly bringing a woman from Mumbai to the city on false charges.

At a press conference on Wednesday, film producer-actor Pooja Bhatt of WRPG, POW's Sandhya and Abraham Mathan, Vice-Chairman, State Minorities Commission of Maharashtra, charged the police with dragging the woman - Surekha Sumitran to Hyderabad based on a complaint filed by her former husband a few days ago.

However, they maintained that the police action was unwarranted, as the woman had already obtained an ex-parte divorce from her husband, a corporate hospital doctor, in June.

While the original case filed by her ex-husband under different sections was cognizable it was surreptitiously altered to make it a non-bailable offence, they alleged.

No warrant

Ms. Sumitran said the police in private vehicles brought her along with her mother Shyamala Sumitran to Hyderabad without any producing a warrant.

She accused the police official concerned of `deliberately' delaying sending her to judicial custody forcing them to spend a night at the women's prison home. She pointed out that her ex-husband did not attend the divorce proceedings and had also expressed his helplessness on providing any monetary compensation. But, later he filed a cheating case against her and sought restoration of conjugal rights after she obtained the divorce. Ms. Bhatt and Ms. Sandhya said the police had acted in haste and wanted a CID inquiry especially against the police official concerned.

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