Hundreds of people held a protest in Chennai in support of the Dalit woman from Hathras
Chennai:
DMK MP Kanimozhi has been detained by police while leading a women’s protest in Chennai against the alleged gang rape and murder of a 20-year-old Dalit woman in UP’s Hathras last month.
Ms. Kanimozhi and 150 others were arrested during a candlelight march to Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu, to demand justice for the family of the Dalit woman who died in a Delhi hospital. last week after sustaining serious injuries, including those to the spine, in a savage assault that has drawn comparisons to the 2012 gang rape in Delhi.
“A cruel rape occurred in Uttar Pradesh, where a girl was brutally raped. The UP government is trying to hide the rape incident. Since the BJP government came to power, crime against women has increased.” Kanimozhi told the protesters before she was arrested.
The head of DMK and leader of the opposition MK Stalin was also present and also spoke with the protesters.
Footage from Chennai showed hundreds of people gathered in the Little Mount area of the city, which is about a kilometer from Raj Bhavan, with police barricades to prevent further advance.
Although there are prohibition orders that prohibit large gatherings, the police had given limited permission to protest. However, when the protesters tried to cross the barricades and march on Raj Bhavan, the police arrested Ms. Kanimozhi and other people.
The images showed that three buses full of people were carried away and the rest dispersed.
The DMK, the main opposition in the state, wants the investigation into the Hathras tragedy, which has been turned over to the CBI, to be overseen by a Supreme Court judge. The party, an ally of Congress, also asked the UP government to apologize for the treatment it has given the Gandhis.
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were mistreated by UP police last week, while trying to meet the Dalit woman’s family.
On Thursday, during their first attempt to do so, police officers pushed Gandhi to the ground who refused to allow a congressional delegation to visit Hathras, citing Covid management guidelines.
Two days later, his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was pushed and a male police officer grabbed her clothes as she tried to protect a party worker during a charge of lathi at the Delhi-UP border.
The Yogi Adityanath government and UP police have faced widespread condemnation for handling the Hathras horror.
The administration has been accused of trying to cover up a crime attributed to the upper caste Thakurs. The police, in addition to their physical confrontation with the Gandhis and other opposition leaders, have been accused of delaying the investigation.
They were also criticized after taking the woman’s body and forcibly cremating it, without allowing relatives to say goodbye.
On Monday, the police filed 19 FIRs, not against those accused of the assault, but against accusations of a “conspiracy” against the government of Yogi Adityanath.
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