Madhya Pradesh: Students' black scarves seized ahead of CM programme

Betul, Sep 11: Amid a series of incidents of showing black flags to the political leaders in Madhya Pradesh, police allegedly took away black scarves of a few college students before attending a programme of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Betul district on Tuesday (September 11).

About half-a-dozen women students of the Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya had reached Multai town -- around 220 km south of Bhopal -- to attend the event. They were in their uniforms. Narrating the incident, one of the women said, "When we reached the venue, a woman police officer told us to remove our black dupattas and keep it in the bag. Later, they took it away, saying that it would be given back after the end of the CM's programme." She said they were told that the scarves would be returned from the Multai police station. "When we reached the police station, the officers there again told us to reach the venue to collect it, but still we are not getting our scarf."

Hitting out at Chouhan over the incident, former Multai MLA and state Congress general secretary Sukhdev Panse said, "The chief minister is afraid. He is afraid even from the uniforms of the girl students. This has never happened in the state's history when the police took away the chunnis of the girls due to fear of protest."

Local BJP MLA Chandrashekhar Deshmukh denied having any knowledge about the incident. "This is serious if such things have happened. I am immediately going to talk to police officers as to why this has happened." On the other hand, Multai police station incharge Ram Snehi Chouhan also expressed ignorance about the incident. "I was on duty at other place to arrest the protesters."

Earlier, the Congress leaders staged a protest with black flags and courted arrest near the venue. Of late, several incidents had taken place in the state in which the people protesting against the recent amendments to the SC/ST Act had shown black flags to the political leaders of all parties.

PTI