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PUCL team indicts police for violence against poll boycotters

A pregnant woman was kicked on her stomach resulting in an abortion, while in the case of another, the foetus died due to alleged police atrocities in Gundupatti village near Kodaikanal following a poll boycott call, according to the People's Union of Civil Liberties.

Police personnel went on the rampage in the village inhabited by Sri Lankan repatriates on February 22, ransacking houses, damaging household articles and even polluting the public well, a PUCL fact-finding team said in Madras today.

The provocation for the attack was the poll boycott call by the villagers, who traditionally voted for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. When most of the menfolk were away at work, the police beat up women and children. In one instance, a police constable flung a three-month- old baby away, but it miraculously survived, the team members said in their report.

The villagers had been demanding, among other things, a motorable road.

The report was highly critical of the police claim that the injuries suffered by the villagers and damage to their houses were self-inflicted.

While welcoming the CB-CID probe and visit by a high-level fact-finding team, PUCL general secretary Dr Suresh, Professor Bernard D Sami, A Santhanam and R Venkatesh said the committee's report should be made public.

The police personnel and DMK members involved in the alleged atrocities should be immediately arrested and criminal proceedings initiated against them, the team added.

The villagers arrested in connection with the incidents should be released and cases withdrawn, it further said. The police and ruling party men shadowed the PUCL fact-finding team, these members have also alleged.

UNI

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