Dissatisfied with police secrecy and raising questions over the deportation of Nepal citizen Nitu Singh, a student of the Film and Television Institute of India here, the All-India Democratic Women’s Association has sought the intervention of the Maharashtra Director-General of Police.
In a letter to him on Friday, AIDWA State president Kiran Moghe claimed that Ms. Singh’s was deported at the instance of her politically influential Nepali husband and not because of her “anti-national activities,” a reason cited by the Pune police.
Speaking to The Hindu, Priya Jhavar, one of Ms. Singh’s close friends at the FTII, said: “Nitu was at the end of her three-year postgraduate diploma in film editing. At 10.30 p.m. on December 5, two plainclotheswomen went to Nitu’s room. They told her to accompany them in order to identify a person against whom she earlier registered a complaint. Some 15 minutes later, eight to ten more police officials came and started packing up Nitu’s things. When the FTII Director intervened, he was told that it was a high security matter and nothing could be divulged.”
Director Pankaj Rag then spoke to Deputy Commissioner (Special Branch) Ravindra Sengaonkar. He was told that Ms. Singh was deported for “anti-national activities” and that further information could not be divulged since it was “a high security matter.”
Mr. Rag was informed on December 7 that she had been deported vide order No. FOR/NEP/DEPORT/1475/2009 dated December 12, 2009 and handed over to her parents in Kathmandu.
Arrest after sunset
Ms. Moghe said: “First, arresting a woman after sunset requires an order from the magistrate. The police did not show any deportation order to either Nitu or the FTII Director.”
In the letter to the DGP, she said: “We believe that she has been falsely charged as part of a conspiracy hatched by her husband to ensure that she remains in his custody and does not live an independent life.”
“She was harassed from day of marriage”
Ms. Singh had been an FTII student since October 2005. On May 13, 2007, she married Amresh Kumar Singh of Nepal. The letter said: “She experienced severe physical and mental harassment from the very first day of marriage. She decided to continue her course at the FTII and returned to Pune. However, Amresh...would continuously make abusive and disturbing telephone calls, send emails and messages on the mobile, threatening to deport her.”
“Husband politically influential”
The letter added: “She told us that Mr. Amresh is an influential politician in Nepal, a former MP of the Nepali Congress, and was using his contacts in the Nepali government as well as in India to harass her and prevent her from completing her studies and becoming financially independent.
“Mr. Amresh was utilising some of his Indian contacts to phone Nitu and pose as the police or CBI officers and threaten her. We even gave a written complaint to the Prabhat Police Chowkey, Pune, but they did not take any action against those involved.”
Ms. Moghe told The Hindu that Ms. Singh sent her a few messages on her mobile phone after the deportation. She informed her that police officials had stayed with her continuously in her house.
