Archives: Lovers

What the cops in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh can do, we in Bihar can do better. That seemed to have been the watchword of a bunch of highhanded policemen in capital Patna on June 7. The disturbing details from the Times of India: [Link] On Friday, sub-inspector Anita Gupta was suspended for harassing couples at the Shahid Peer Ali Khan Children's Park, located in front of the Patna DM's official residence. Senior SP, Patna, R Mallar Vizhi, said: "We have ordered an inquiry. Actually, we had launched a campaign against eve-teasers." ...

This small incident almost went unnoticed: [Link] Days after they fled their home in Bihar and set a lover’s nest in the Dhobi Mohalla here (in Jalandhar), a man and wife, both minors, became victims of moral policing when their neighbours assaulted them and blackened their faces before parading them in the locality on Sunday night. Police conducted raids on Monday, after Ram Parvesh, the victim, lodged a complaint. “We have booked four persons for inflicting atrocities on the couple and humiliating them,” an officer said. The neighbours, he added, had apparently objected to...

Anyone with some amount of power can play the moral police these days. Just as the personnel of a private security agency have been doing at the Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park in Hyderabad, says a report in the Hindu. Details: [Link] David Shulman, renowned professor from Hebrew University and Suchitra Seth, an academician from Ahmedabad, were meeting after a long time and wished to take a post-breakfast stroll inside the park. However, security guards at the gate did not take kindly to their intention and sought to know if they were “a couple”! ...

The dreaded Government Railway Police (GRP) has played jury, judge and executioner in Bihar's Gaya. The Times of India has the bizarre details: [Link] Trouble first struck 18-year-old Sweetie of neighbouring Aurangabad district's Rafiganj when railway cops on Saturday morning picked her up from a platform of the Gaya station. She was then waiting for her boyfriend Sunny, scheduled to travel from Patna to meet her on Valentine's Day. Like her sweetheart, he too ended up in the Gaya GRP's lock up on his arrival. It was at a marriage ceremony that the boy, whose father runs a jewellery...

Here's a snub for the moral police. The Delhi High Court has held that an "expression of love by a young married couple" by stealing kisses in public should not attract the charge of obscenity. The Times of India had a detailed report: [Link] Justice S Muralidhar stayed an FIR lodged against one Ajit (name changed) and his wife who were booked by the Dwarka police station cops for allegedly kissing each other under the local Metro station even as they awaited word from their lawyer in connection with registration of their marriage. ...

You can't beat this. The nuisance detection squad (NTS) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on January 23 swooped down on 12 young couples sitting in a position which the squad found "objectionable" and slapped a fine of Rs 6,000 on them. Sakaal Times has all the details: [Link] This is the first time that the NTS has actually levied penalties, though it claims to have carried out such exercise in the past also. Ward officer Madhav Jagtap said that the action is, however, in no way an isolated one, and similar drive will be undertaken throughout the city in...

The police in Nagpur haven't quite done a Meerut, but they have been seen in action. On September 16, they caught 82 young boys and girls, some of them botany students, from the Botanical Garden in Telankedhi area and herded them into the Gittikhadan police station, on suspicion of indulging in indecent behaviour in public. The girls and boys were made to wait for hours for the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Purushottam Gavai, to arrive before being released. The Indian Express reported: [Link] ...

The Orissa State Women's Commission has taken upon itself the onerous job of playing the moral police in state capital Bhubaneswar. On Friday, they took help from the real police and hounded out 200 young couples from a popular dating haunt, the Science Park. The Indian Express had this to report: [Link] (SCW chairperson Namita) Panda said she was prompted to raid the park because of rising cases of unwed mothers and rape on false promise of marriage by youngmen in the capital. “Most of the victims (of pre-marital pregnancy and rape) had told me that three parks (name not...

Valentine's Day comes every year with its share of spoils. I mean, the spoilsports. This year couldn't have been any different. More so, since the zealots have not died away. Just a quick rundown of some news reports:The New Indian Express: ROURKELA: Planning a date on Valentine Day. Here is a warning for unmarried young couples. The moral police in the saffron brigade will be on a prowl at vulnerable dating points to swoop down on lovebirds engaged in intimacy! This year too the VHP and its youth wing Bajrang Dal (BD) have braced for what they call protection of traditional and...

Many love stories have born and evolved on the sands of Marina beach and they may continue to do so as the big stick of Chennai cops has now been instructed not to play spoilsport anymore. [Link] Chennai Police Commissioner G Nanchil Kumaran has instructed the department to leave the decent couples alone on the beach and focuses on eveteasers instead. [Link] The police department, famous for its moral policing, now says that lovers can meet at the beach and spend time there happily and that the police would not harass them. ...