Moral police strikes at Besant Nagar

CHENNAI: It was a nightmarish experience for a girl who had gone to the Elliots Beach on Monday evening. She was humiliated by cops in front of a crowd that was eagerly waiting for the city police commissioner to flag off a new all-terrain vehicle gifted to the police to patrol the beach.
The policemen, who were too eager to please the senior officials gathered at the venue, and the media, chased away the girl and her boyfriend from the beach and later ‘interrogated’ them in full public view and then took the boy in a police vehicle to the police station.
“He is my fiancé and I have told this to the police. He hugged me and police personnel said the media had objected to this. Now they have taken him to the station saying that they will have to conduct some enquiry,” the girl, on the verge of tears, told The Times Of India. She said both of them were final year students at a city college.
A large crowd had gathered to see this ‘heroics’ of the police and continued following them till the couple were openly ‘interrogated’ on the road.
People from the shops and nearby lanes came on to the road when police harassed the couple, who were accused of breaking the public code of decency. The girl finally telephoned some friends and left the scene. “The boy will be allowed to go after a warning,” police inspector Selvam said.
A shopkeeper who witnessed the high-handedness of the police fumed, “Such behaviour from the police is not acceptable. We often see young men creating nuisance on the beach, harassing girls and couples, and the police are mute spectators. It is the presence of the media and senior police officials that prompted the cops to act like this.”
Many who gathered at the beach said the new all-terrain vehicle could be misused by the police to harass couples visiting the beach.
“There are many people who get into the sea for a swim. We routinely hear of people drowning both at Elliots beach and at the Marina. Police should be chasing away such people, and not couples who come here to spend some time together,” another onlooker said.
Even some locals, taking inspiration from cops, play the role of moral police on Chennai’s beaches and parks. There are many who allegedly heckle couples coming to the beaches and even try to misbehave with them.
“Policemen themselves set the example and convey the message that they have the right to disturb couples coming to the beach. Locals see them chasing away such couples and then try to emulate them.
Police has now installed cameras at public places that can zoom on to these couples. Though cameras surely a crime deterrent, the risk of their misuse is always there,” another member of the public said.
Chennai police have often been accused of chasing away couples from beaches in Marina and Elliot’s. They even threaten the girls that their parents would be called up and informed about their “indecent behaviour.”