Chowdhury has been booked under Section 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the IPC.
New Delhi: Moments after a Congress protest turned violent in Hyderabad, the police booked former Union minister and Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury for allegedly grabbing the collar of a policeman during the protest. The state unit of Congress had organised a ‘Chalo Raj Bhavan’ protest to agitate against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioning senior party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Chowdhury has been booked under Section 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the IPC upon a complaint by a sub-inspector.
In a video clip, Chowdhury was heard saying, “I have no intention of hitting policemen. That’s not my intention at all. I was being manhandled. I was losing my balance. I was falling on that man. You can see in those visuals that they are suddenly trying to push me. And that is the reason when I was reaching for the shoulder he moved and I caught his collar. It was not my intention to humiliate him or anything like that. Unnecessarily the real issue is being diverted,” Chowdhury could be heard saying in the video where she is seated inside a police jeep.
According to reports, a scuffle between Congress workers and the police broke out after the former tried to march towards the Raj Bhavan and the police stopped them. Some Congress workers were also seen atop buses and other vehicles shouting slogans against the government. While several leaders were picked up from the protest site, all of them were released by evening, said the police.
However, Congress leaders have been booked for holding the protest, damage to a bus, burning of a two-wheeler and obstruction of civil servants from discharging their duties, the police told the media. The protestors had allegedly set a motorcycle of a policeman on fire.
