HYDERABAD: Days after activist and professor, Sujatha Surepally lodged a complaint with the Karimnagar Police Commissioner against BJP spokesperson Bandi Sanjay, and the women and minority wings of the RSS for defaming and harassing her, it has been declared that “no crime has been made out”.
Karimnagar CP VB Kamalasan Reddy told Express that after the complaint was lodged, the police sought “legal opinion” and that was the conclusion. “It amounts to defamation. When somebody tries to blame her, she has to apply to the court of law for defamation,” added Reddy.
A professor at Satavahana University and also an activist who has been fighting for several causes in State has been receiving death threats and also being trolled online. She has been accused of being ‘anti-national’ and of burning photos of Bharat Mata on the University campus on December 25. Sujatha, however, said she was in Hyderabad and not in Karimnagar on the day.
After that, posts have been put up on several social media websites maligning her identity. One of them is that with the name ‘Pillala Manmadha Vedhas’ on Facebook, which has a photograph of Sujatha speaking on the microphone along with text in Telugu which translates to, “She is a professor who burnt the photo of Bharat Mata and is inculcating feelings of Naxalism through her teachings and destroying the lives of students.”
The caption reads, “All Indians should comment or they die. Lakshmana (Lord Ram’s brother) cut off the ears and nose of Soorpanaka, what do we do with this woman?” The post has been shared more than 200 times where people are attacking her gender, her caste in manner that cannot be deemed tasteful. Sujatha said, she expected nothing more from the Karimnagar police as they were hostile towards her when she went to lodge her complaint.
Activists across the state have been holding meetings to bring the issue to the fore. Anant Mariganti of Hyderabad Urban Labs, among the many who have been working to highlight this issue of online harassment pointed out that those commenting on the post are stirring negative emotions which could lead to something critical.