First transsexual SI files police plaint against ex

CHENNAI: The country’s first transsexual police officer, K Prithika Yashini, has charged her former boyfriend with harassment.


In a complaint to the Aminjikarai police, Prithika, a

sub-inspector

, said she had a relationship with Janardhanan after meeting him on Facebook a few years ago.

They had differences of opinion and separated around the time she received her first police posting a year ago, she said. She had not been in touch with him since then.

She recently started to receive disturbing calls and messages from Janardhanan, Prithika said in the complaint. She said she made it clear to Janardhanan that the messages and calls were unwelcome.

The Aminjikarai police registered a case and questioned Janardhanan. They let him off with a warning after he promised officers that he would not attempt to contact Prithika again.

“We took an undertaking from Janardhanan before letting him go,” a police officer said.

Prithika, born in Salem in 1990, was the son of an autorickshaw driver, P Kalaiarasan, and a homemaker, Sumathi. As an adult, she underwent a sex change operation and changed her birth name of Pradeep Kumar.

She applied for the post of sub-inspector in February 2015, but came up against a brick wall in the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board, which rejected her application. Prithika moved the Madras high court, stating that the board had rejected her application for the post of SI on the grounds that the application had only two columns — male and female — for candidates to indicate their gender.

In a milestone November 2015 ruling, the court directed the board to include members of the transgender community under a “third category”.

Recruited as an SI, Prithika received her appointment order in February 2016. She is now with the

Choolaimedu

police.