Mild tension prevailed near Hotel Meghalaya here on Sunday morning when representatives of various women organisations were taken into custody as they refused to call off their protest against the proposed pageant in the city.
Raising slogans against holding of ‘Miss. Vizag – 2017’ by Creative Plus Entertainment Network and Rays Entertainments and Dreams Events, representatives of Progressive Organisation for Women (POW), National Federation of Indian Women, All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and Chaitanya Mahila Sangam (CMS) demanded cancellation of the show.
Trouble began when the police tried to whisk the agitators away from the venue. The protest turned violent when a woman activist’s clothes were torn off and a few refused to get into the police van alleging high-handed behaviour of the police.
“It is a shame that the organisers are only bent upon conducting the pageant and that too with ‘Save girl child’ as its theme. If they are really concerned about girls, let them feature an exclusive sports event for women, work on improving the child sex ratio, serve nutritious food to women. Given the increasing crime rate in the city, it is not advisable to hold the pageant which would eventually lead to deviation from the academic goals of the contestants,” pointed out AIDWA State president B. Prabhavati.
‘It is unfortunate that the authorities concerned lending support to such events instead of discouraging them,” she said.
ACP (East) A. Narasimha Murthy said that the police did not object when the agitators staged a dharna at the Gandhi statue near GVMC without seeking permission a day before.
“But creating a ruckus right in the middle of the road is causing inconvenience to the general public. Since they did not stop the protest despite our repeated requests, we are left with no other choice but to arrest them. In the process, many of the women police were also injured,” he said.
Meanwhile, organisers of the show cancelled the auditions, scheduled for the day, following the protest.
According to D. Ravi Kumar, one of the organisers, the pageant scheduled on November 11 has been postponed. “We have been organising the annual contest for over a decade in the city sans any trace of obscenity and it will be held in similar manner in future too. However, the date for the pageant and auditions have not been finalised,” he said.
