BHOPAL: An eighty-year-old woman has gone on a fast, demanding justice after she and her kin were allegedly tortured by police while dealing with agitating farmers on the Bhopal-Sehore border on Friday.
The octogenarian, Kamlabai Mewade, claimed that five members of her family, including her son and four grandsons, have been arrested for breach of peace, despite them having no hand in the violence.
“On Friday, the police barged into my house thrashed me and my husband, besides other male members of my family. They (police) subsequently lugged me along with other family members in a jeep and took us to a police station, where a woman police constable pulled me by my hair and beat me up,” said Mewade on Sunday.
“The police told us that we had given shelter to anti-socials who were pelting stones on them from our roadside house in Fanda,” said Mewade.
“After I complained of acute pain in my hand, I was taken in a police jeep and later dumped at the Hamidia hospital in Bhopal. I was left there by the police station staff, who didn’t take me to the doctors for a check-up. Instead, it was with the help of people present at the hospital and authorities there that I was able to inform about my condition to my other son Bhola back home,” said Mewade.
It was only after her son arrived on Friday night, that she got an X-ray done on her swollen hand. The X-ray revealed fracture, she added.
On Saturday, when the CM began his fast for peace at the BHEL Dussehra Maidan in Bhopal city, the octogenarian, along with her son, went to meet him at the fast venue. But on-duty government staff turned her away.
“The CM might have ended his upwaas, but I won’t end my fast till my kin return. The CM owes me a reply on why we were beaten by the police, despite not having helped any anti-socials,” said Mewade.
When contacted, SP (Bhopal North) Arvind Saxena, who led the police against those suspected of pelting stones at security forces during the farmers’ stir on the Bhopal-Indore highway near Fanda village, said he just came to know about the matter and the entire episode is being probed. More than 100 police personnel have been injured in the farmers’ stir since June 1 in Madhya Pradesh.