A police constable, identified as Parmesh, was suspended from service after a video of him inappropriately touching a protesting woman doctor in Hyderabad went viral. An inquiry has been ordered into the incident.
The incident took place on Wednesday outside the Government Nizamia General Hospital where medical students from the Government Ayurveda hospital conducted a protest against the shifting of their hospital to Erragadda.
The hospital is being shifted because of renovation work and the students said that they repeatedly spoke to the Director of AYUSH, Dr Varshini, but did not succeed. The students protested for a week and showed no signs of stopping, The News Minute reports.
The police then deployed teams to stop the protests and there were female officers to take care of the female protesters. However, there were reports of male police handling female students.
The untoward incident sparked a major controversy on Thursday with many issuing statements regarding the matter.
"The Home Minister also directed the police to deploy women police personnel to handle women in such situations, to avoid such allegations and complaints against the police," a statement from the Home Minister's office said after the allegation surfaced of the policeman inappropriately touching the woman.
While talking to the media, Hyderabad's DCP Amber Kishor Jha said that they are looking into the video to verify if the act was intentional or otherwise.
"While performing duty there's a possibility of such a thing. We are verifying everything, but the circulation of the video is wrong. I request everyone to not share the video," the DCP added.
On the other hand, the Congress Party has said that a mere suspension is not enough and they have demanded a case to be filed against the constable in question under Sections 354A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code. Congress national spokesperson Sravan Dasoju has asked for the constable not to be removed from police duty immediately. Hr also said that asking male police officers to handle female protesters was a serious offence and the order had to be investigated.
