Alleged assault on Medha Patkar

PUNE, May 30: Narmada Bachao Anadolan leader Medha Patkar, currently leading a campaign against Enron and other pollution-making industries in Konkan, today blasted the police raj’ in Maharashtra. She would seek legal remedies against her unjust imprisonment and State’s acts to suppress the people’s movement’, she declared.

Patkar and other women activists participating in the Samvad Yatra, who were released on bail today, alleged police excesses after they were intercepted and picked up’ at Mangaon in Raigad district, late last evening. The Yatra was on its way to Mumbai to participate in an anti-Enron dharna’ which was to be followed by an appointment with Prime Minister I K Gujral, during his scheduled visit to Mumbai tomorrow.

State Janata Dal general secretary, Prof Gopal Dukhande expressed the view that the NBA leader and activists arrested at Mahad yesterday, had been remanded to magisterial custody at the behest of the State Government.

The NBA leader and six other women activists were virtually “selected for separate treatment” by the police, including a few plainclothesmen and women police, an NBA spokesman alleged. At least four women, including Patkar, were brutally beaten before being taken into the custody, he said.

Meanwhile, Patkar and 34 other activists, who were earlier remanded to magisterial custody till June 14 and brought to Yerwada Central Prison here, accepted bail for attending tomorrow’s proposed dharna’ in Mumbai.