Date:27/04/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/27/stories/2005042717420400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Women activists arrested

Staff Reporter

Cordoned off: Policemen preventing POW activists from proceeding to the DGP office here on Tuesday. PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR .

HYDERABAD: Over two dozen activists of the Progressive Organisation of Women (POW) and the Andhra Pradesh Chaitanya Mahila Samakhya (APCMS) were arrested on Tuesday morning for holding up traffic as they were agitating.

They were staging a dharna opposite the police headquarters demanding the arrest of Anita Sen, wife of the Director General of Police, Swaranjit Sen, in the child trafficking case and the latter's removal from the DGP's post.

The agitating women, led by the POW president, V. Sandhya, the APCMS president, B. Jyothi, activist Ratnamala and others had barely begun to converge near the main gates of the DGP's office when a strong posse of police personnel swooped in. Charging the agitators with unlawful assembly, the police bundled them into a waiting van.

Raising slogans denouncing the police action in not giving them an opportunity to stage a peaceful protest, the agitators squatted on the busy road. The agitators were shifted to different police stations, while the police went about clearing the traffic jam.