VIJAYAWADA: Four days after taking suo motu cognisance of the reports of alleged highhandedness of the police against women farmers of the capital region during the protests against the government’s proposal to shift the Secretariat from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam, a two-member fact-finding team from the National Commission for Women (NCW) visited capital villages on Sunday. The team was bombarded with complaints by women farmers of Amaravati, policewomen, TDP and YSRC.
The team comprising senior coordinator Kanchan Khattar and counsellor Praveen Singh, reached the R&B Guest House in Guntur on Sunday morning. Guntur MP Galla Jayadev, along with Telugu Desam spokesperson Panchumarthi Anuradha and former ZP chairperson Gadde Anuradha, met the NCW team.
Jayadev showed videos and photos of the protests where women were being dragged and manhandled by police, and submitted a representation seeking action against the government and police for creating unrest in the capital region.
"We have shown all the visuals to the NCW team. Policewomen were not present in several cases. Wherever they were present, their behaviour was worse than policemen. People were not given food and water during detention. The policewomen did not have badges and IDs, which make us question if they were genuine police personnel or not," the MP said.
To counter the charges of the opposition TDP, Andhra Pradesh Women’s Commission Chairperson Vasireddy Padma and some ruling YSRC women MLAs met the NCW team and submitted a representation.
Speaking to the media later, Padma alleged that the TDP leaders tried to tarnish the image of the YSRC government by producing fake and fabricated videos of Amaravati protests to the NCW team. She also opined that they were not given proper opportunity to submit the facts and explain how the opposition TDP leaders were creating tension in the capital villages by provoking farmers.
Later, the team visited Thullur village and gathered information from tahsildar A Sudhir Babu and DSP Srinivas Reddy about the alleged incidents of police lathicharge and attacks on the farmers. The NCW team also interacted with the women protesters and enquired about the prevailing situation in the capital villages. Assuring justice to the women, the team asked the police to submit all details pertaining to cases registered and people arrested during the protests.
The team also visited Mandadam where representatives of the Joint Action Committee of Women, explained the alleged atrocities committed by police against women farmers in the name of enforcing prohibitory orders in the capital region and urged it to prevail upon the police to withdraw ban orders under Section 144 and Police Act 30.
Policewomen also lodged a complaint with the NCW team against protesters alleging that they were attacked while performing duties. women police officers Sandhya Rani, Anantha Krishna, Sirisha, Kumari, Venkateswaramma, Appamma, Padma and Syamala alleged that the protestors, including women, indulged in physical attacks and abused them.
In the evening, the NCW team met Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao, Commissioner of Police of Vijayawada, and sought details of cases registered against the agitating women during the protest rally organised by the JAC of Women at Benz Circle in the city a few days ago. The team collected videos and photographs of the protest.
Earlier in the day, N Chandrababu Naidu visited Sri Lakshmi, who was injured during a protest at Mandadam on Friday, at a private hospital in Vijayawada and expressed his support to her family.