Protest petition if can be treated as complaint.

MISHRA, J.

The appellant herein who has described herself as a domestic servant and her deceased husband as a construction worker, has filed a writ petition, W.P. No. 9195 of 1992 alleging that on 30-5-1992, she and her husband were woken up by the police at about 3.00 a.m. in the night, while they were in a hut near the Dental College at Annamalai Nagar in the District of South Arcot. One of the policemen told her husband to come to the police station. She wanted to know the reason, why policemen took her husband to the Police Station and was told that her husband was wanted for interrogation in connection with a case of theft. In the morning on 30th around 6.00 a.m., she went to her mother-in-law's place, told her about the arrest of her husband and then went with coffee for her husband to the Police Station. An orderly took the coffee for her husband and returned the empty tumbler. He asked her to bring idly for her husband and when she enquired about her husband, she was informed that he (her husband) had been beaten in the night and that he knew nothing else and that she should bring idlies for her husband. In the narration of the events a policeman was identified by her as 'Bhai' and some others either as an elderly policeman, or chokidar or as sweeper at the police station, but incidents thereafter narrated by her disclose as follows :

"In the morning around 6 a.m. (on 31-5-92) I went to my house. By brother-in-law came there and I told him about the detention of my husband. He said that he was also being searched for by the police and he could not go to the station to see my husband. He asked me to take coffee and food for my husband. I went to my mother-in-law's house and took coffee for my husband. I was asked to bring idly for my husband and accordingly I took idlies to the station and I gave them to a slim police constable. He gave them to my husband and returned the vessel and said that I should come back to the station after lunch. I went to my mother-in-law's place to return the vessel and thereafter I went to my house and fell asleep at about 11 a.m.

While I was asleep, I received a sharp lathi blow on my buttocks and when I woke up, I saw the elderly policeman with a lathi standing by my side and before I could stand up he gave several blows on me with his lathi saying 'how dare you asleep when you were told to come back to the police station', and so saying he pulled me out of my hut by my legs. This happened around 1 a.m. I saw two autorickshaws, one with 4 policeman and another with my husband Nandagopal and another person whom I came to know later on as one Subramani. Another policeman gave a blow on my back with his lathi and I ran to the auto in which my husband was sitting and I got into it. We were taken to the police station. In the station my husband and the said Subramani were put in the lock up and I was beaten and pulled by my blouse by the policemen led by the elderly policeman saying why I did not turn up to the station as directed by them and my blouse was torn. I was pushed to a corner. Unable to bear the pain and humiliation I could not control crying. The elderly policeman threatened to kill me if I cried.

In the evening one policeman told me to go home and change my dress and bring food for my husband. While giving food to my husband he said that he would not be freed and the police was threatening to kill him, before 5th June and that it was better that I escaped and went to some safer place. I told him that I was being followed by four or five policemen and I did not know what to do. Suddenly a policeman called Karunanidhi beat me and my husband with a lathi asking us what we were talking. He took my husband and pushed him inside the lock-up room even before he finished eating. I requested the policeman 'Bhai' to let me go home. One of the policemen said that I could be let off but the 'Bhai' policeman said that "we will let her off after carrying out our plan". Then two women