Top cops of Telugu States quizzed over love marriage

The High Court at Hyderabad on Tuesday issued notices to both the Director General of Police (DGPs) of Telangana State and Andhhra Pradesh and police officers of Anantapur and Rachakonda Commissionerate directing them to respond to the horrible incident of police overaction in a love marriage affair that resulted in great trauma for the family of a retired officer of S K University in Anantapur.

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice T Rajani gave this direction while dealing with a letter written by Pushpalatha Vittal of Anantapur, whose husband is now battling for life in a hospital.

She narrated the trauma experienced by her family in the hands of the Anantapur police who detained her husband and insulted him, besides beating him up for no fault of his. Unable to bear the insult, her husband attempted to commit suicide by swallowing 20 sleeping pills and he is presently battling for his life.

Some police officers of Rachakonda Commissionerate in Hyderabad too played a role in this matter, she alleged.
According to her letter, her son Sai and Soumya of Hyderabad loved each other and decided to marry. They had to concede to their demand and perform the marriage because the girl threatened to kill herself if they could not marry. The couple was living in Anantapur.

But the girl’s parents filed a girl missing case in Ibrahimpatnam police station under Rachakonda Commissionerate. Some police officials from there influenced the police in Anantapur who illegally detained the father of the boy in custody for an entire day, besides abusing him and beating him up. Vittal felt humiliated and attempted to end his life and is currently battling for his life in a hospital.

An aggrieved Pushpalatha then wrote a letter to the High Court seeking action against the errant police men. The PIL Committee in the High Court which went through the letter felt the need to make it a PIL and accordingly converted the letter into a PIL.

In view of the FIRs related to love marriages, there were also demands to make some general guidelines to the police as to how they should deal with such cases.

The bench of Justice Ramesh Ranganathan which heard the case on Tuesday gave two weeks to the authorities to respond.