Flinging of broomsticks on ‘Savukku’ Shankar | Plea in Madras HC insists on a judicial inquiry

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the State government to appoint a retired High Court judge to conduct an inquiry regarding those who had mobilised women protesters to fling broomsticks on arrested YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar when he was produced before the courts in Chennai and Madurai in May this year.

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the State government to appoint a retired High Court judge to conduct an inquiry regarding those who had mobilised women protesters to fling broomsticks on arrested YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar when he was produced before the courts in Chennai and Madurai in May this year.

The petition has been listed for admission before the first Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice R. Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq on Monday. Advocate M.L. Ravi had filed the case insisting that the Comissioners of Police of Greater Chennai as well as Madurai city must also be directed to register First Information Reports (FIRs) against the women protesters and their instigators.

In his affidavit, the litigant said, the YouTuber was arrested first in a case booked for having spoken ill about women police personnel in an interview to an YouTube channel. Thereafter, he was arrested in multiple other cases which included a case booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and another booked on a complaint from Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.

When the YouTuber was taken to courts to Madurai and Chennai for being remanded to judicial custody in those case, a group of women protesters had gathered and flung broomsticks on him. Subsequently, when a television channel journalist had interviewed them, some women protesters had conceded to have come to the spot on being asked to do so and that they had no idea about who the YouTuber was.

Relying upon the television interview, the petitioner said, the police should have taken preventive measures and not allowed the protesters to gather near the court premises. He said, the police should have, at least, by now booked cases against the protesters as well as their instigators after the incidents had occurred.