CHENNAI: An 80-year-old woman on Thursday lodged a complaint against a police inspector for assaulting her and fracturing one of her hands.
S Santhammal, a resident of Mahalakshmi Nagar at Guduvanchery, has alleged that she was at the bus stop at Perungalathur on January 30 when Guduvancherry inspector Govindaraj verbally abused her and pushed her down.
She said the police officer was angry that she had lodged a complaint against him with the Kancheepuram district Superintendent of Police for not taking action on a complaint she had lodged against her landlord.
However, the inspector has denied the allegations.
“When I was vacating the house, I asked the house-owner to return the advance money of `50,000. But he refused and started abusing me,” said Santhammal. Her elder son Koteeswaran alleged that the owner, in fact, had taken away 12 sovereigns of gold jewellery from their house after an argument over the issue.
“Though an FIR was filed against the house owner, the Guduvanchery police took no action. Subsequently, they threw all our belongings out and locked the house also,” said Koteeswaran. He said they had filed a complaint in the office of the Superintendent of Police against the inspector for not taking action on the FIR.
The complaint alleged that angered by this, the inspector abused and assaulted Santhammal when he saw her on January 30.
However, Govindaraj denied the allegations and said, “After the complaint, we arrested and remanded the house-owner for forcefully removing the belongings and the tenants. But he subsequently came out on bail.”
When queried about the allegation that he assaulted Santhammal, he said he was on duty in the High Court on January 30 and was not at Perungalathur throughout that day. He claimed that Koteeswaran himself has got cases pending against him and in fact, was trying to divert attention.