Condemn the Moral Policing by Chennai Police

Respected Sir,
We, concerned citizens of India, wish to express our deep concern regarding the indulgence of Chennai City Police officers in acts of cultural and moral policing which the incident concerning Mrs. G. Sujatha, Ph.D. Scholar in the Department of English, University of Madras, has brought to our notice.

On the 13th of September, 2010, Monday, around 5:15 pm one of your police officers, (identified by the victim as Sub Inspector Verghese of Kotturpuram Police Station) had acted in a very undignified and rude manner towards Mrs. Sujatha and her friend. She had been discussing with her (male) friend at Indira Nagar Railway Station, when the police officer called them both and started questioning them in a rather rude manner. When her friend had asked the officer to speak more politely the police officer had physically hit the person without any provocation. Further he had threatened her stating that he will take her to the police station. He had even made rude remarks about the fact that she, a married woman, was sitting with another man and saying that it was not Tamil culture. When the girl said that her husband knew her friend well and that speaking with him is no offence, he threatened her saying that he will make the locals around the place to testify against her. All this while, the officer referred to them in singular term, in a rude manner. This incident has left Mrs Sujatha humiliated as the incident happened in public and she was being accused by the officer for no mistake of hers.

We, the undersigned consider this an act of police harassment as well as an act of cultural policing. We would like to request you to take appropriate steps in curbing both the excesses committed by the police officer in reference and also against such kinds of cultural and moral policing taking place all over Chennai. Also help restore faith in police among the public as this incident seem to take away the basic dignity and freedom of our citizens and threatens to take away the culture of learning and sharing in an open environment of pursuing academic scholarship. Kindly do the needful.