Several women activists and members of the All India Students Association, affiliated to the CPIML-Liberation, protested outside the Delhi police headquarters on Wednesday against the alleged torture of two AISA members during a protest against Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni on Monday.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha — which is leading the movement against the new farm laws — also supported the demand of the students to remove a police officer who supervised the action against the protesters.
In a memorandum to Delhi police commissioner Rakesh Asthana, AISA and women activists Annie Raja of the CPI and Kavita Krishnan of CPIML-Liberation said: “Women personnel of the Delhi police lifted the clothes off one of the woman protester. They kicked another protester in her vagina while dragging her through road. After they were pushed inside the police bus for detention, and thus were already in custody, the police brutally and repeatedly kicked one of them in her private parts, telling them, ‘We will show you your place (sic)’.”
Demanding regulations against such assault, the memorandum said: “We demand that ACP (assistant commissioner of police) Chanakyapuri, Pragya Anand, who clearly instructed the personnel on site to assault the women protesters, be sacked and all the personnel who carried out the sexual assault either as perpetrators or voyeurs be suspended and reprimanded.”
On Monday, 12 AISA members were detained and held at Mandir Marg police station for about six hours, after they attempted to gather near Union home minister Amit Shah’s residence on Krishna Menon Marg to demand that he sack Teni, whose son was allegedly in an SUV that mowed down at least four protesting farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3.
The two AISA activists named in the memorandum — Shreya Kapoor Banerjee, 22, and Neha Tiwari, 25 — told this newspaper that they were beaten up first on the road, and then separately inside police buses by women personnel of the Delhi police.
Banerjee has been prescribed medication for infection and pain in her private parts, and Tiwari is taking over-the-counter painkillers for blows on her chest, abdomen, back and left foot, which she said was trampled upon repeatedly by an officer, allegedly after Anand reprimanded the cops for struggling to contain the small protest.
The police spokesman did not respond to queries from this newspaper on the allegations. Banerjee and Tiwari have not sought the registration of an FIR for fear of further legal action by police.
