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Jaya will lead rally on December 9 to protest dalit woman's death

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha will lead a procession in the city on December 9 and submit a memorandum to the Tamil Nadu governor demanding a judicial inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of a 21-year-old dalit woman after her release from police custody last month.

Disclosing this in a statement in Madras today, Jayalalitha said this would form the fifth phase of her party's agitation on the issue. The public could also join the procession, she added.

Stating that the Karunanidhi government had been ignoring the AIADMK's demand for a judicial inquiry into the issue, she alleged that the police, which should function as protectors of society had "degenerated into despoilers" under the Karunanidhi regime.

Jayalalitha said an inquiry by the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties had revealed that Chitra, who was three months pregnant, was "molested" by the police in the presence of her husband, who had been taken into custody in connection with a theft case.

She alleged that the Karunanidhi government had been maintaining that the suicide note written by Chitra that she was molested, was not at all written by her and that she was not molested in the police station.

UNI

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