Date:13/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/13/stories/2004121305490400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Excise CI held on charge of making indecent proposal

By Our Special Correspondent

ONGOLE, DEC. 12. Tension gripped Kanigiri village in Prakasam district on Sunday when people staged a rasta roko demanding that the police arrest a Circle Inspector of the Excise Department for allegedly misbehaving with a woman.

Bowing to pressure, the police registered a case against the Circle Inspector, B. Venkateswarlu, under Section 354 IPC (outraging modesty of a woman) and took him into custody.

The Circle Inspector had allegedly been making anonymous calls to the woman living near his house for over a month and talking to her indecently. On Saturday he called up again asking her to meet him at a certain place in the village. Vexed with his calls, the woman informed her husband and neighbours who advised her to trap him.

In accordance with the plan, she went to the designated place. The excise official ran away on noticing people closing in on him. Irate villagers then marched to his house and staged a dharna demanding his arrest. They also staged a rasta roko holding up buses going to Hyderabad and Vijayawada late in the evening.

The police registered a case against the accused under Section 509 IPC (indecent behaviour towards a woman). But this did not satisfy the villagers who staged a rasta rook again demanding that the CI be arrested and a case booked under Section 354 IPC which is non-bailable. They gave up the agitation only after the police gave categorical assurance that he would be charged under Section 354.