ATR sought over woman’s self-immolation

CHENNAI : The State Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of the suicide of a woman allegedly due to harassment she faced at the Thiruverkadu police station on Tuesday.Commission member D Jayachandran has asked the Chennai city Police Commissioner to file a Action Taken Report (ATR) against the erring police officers based on the deceased woman G. Renuka’s statements. 

On Wednesday,  Inspector Alexander and a Sub-Inspector Saravanan of the Thiruverkadu station were temporarily transferred to the Armed Reserve division after this incident. Renuka (30) self-immolated on Tuesday afternoon in front of the Thiruverkadu police station after her neighbour lodged a complaint against her over a civic issue. The woman sustained 82 per cent burns and died on Wednesday morning.
Before committing suicide, Renuka visited the Thiruverkadu police station and secretly recorded the conversations between the policemen and her. A second audio recording was also made during her confession while going in the ambulance.

The audio recordings show the Inspector and the Sub-Inspector threatening Renuka, saying that she would be arrested if she did not compromise with her neighbour. The police had also blamed her for having personal motives in lodging complaint against her neighbour and warned that a prostitution case would be foisted on her.