The Madurai Collectorate turned into a field of action on Friday when around 40 Students Federation of India (SFI) members, including three women, laid siege to it and refused to budge. The police forcibly dragged the protestors into a vehicle amid a din of commotion and sloganeering and shifted them to a marriage hall near Jamburopuram market.
The protestors gathered outside the main gate of the Collectorate at 11.45 am and raised slogans demanding action against Madurai Kamaraj University Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan. They accused her of taking vindictive action against a section of students. But within minutes, the protestors took the handful of policemen stationed there by surprise and ran into the Collectorate complex.
The policemen panicked when they saw the SFI members heading towards the portico from where a staircase leads to the Collector’s chambers on the first floor of the main building. But the protestors squatted under the porch and began raising slogans. Immediately, the police force was strengthened and some of the personnel were armed with batons.
Inspector V. Mohan told the agitators that it does not behove well of educated people like them to lay siege to a Collectorate visited by hundreds of people. He requested them to vacate the place and gather elsewhere. But the protestors refused. At 12.05 p.m., he directed three Sub-Inspectors and a host of subordinate police personnel to shift the protestors from the spot.
The unrelenting agitators turned down the plea to get into a police vehicle voluntarily following which they were dragged to a vehicle stationed near the portico. The activists resisted the move and tried to stay put by holding on to one another. The policemen punched some of the students when the latter resisted the attempt to push them into the vehicle.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Samant Rohan Rajendra and Assistant Commissioner of Police S. Thanpal visited the spot to take stock of the situation. A few minutes later, members of Arunthamizhar Viduthalai Iyakkam squatted on the portico and began raising slogans demanding the arrest of a policeman who had reportedly refused to marry a 28-year-old Dalit woman after having a sexual relationship with her.
The victim, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, told journalists that she got acquainted with the policeman about 18 months ago after a wrong call was made by him to her phone number. The Samayanallur All Women Police Station had registered rape case against him on December 16 but there was no further action, she alleged.
She and her supporters vacated the porch after the police intervened.
Another protest Elsewhere in the city, All India Students’ Association (AISA) staged a demonstration near Jhansi Rani Park on Nethaji Road here on Friday condemning the punitive action taken by Madurai Kamaraj University against three research scholars, two faculty members and a non-teaching staff.
G. Sathyakrishnan of AISA presided over the protest participated by C. Mathivanan of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), M. Marichamy of Aam Aadmi Party, retired professor Rajamanickam and select office-bearers of Madurai Kamaraj University Faculty Association (MUFA) and MUTA.
