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Journalism of Courage
Mumbai Police Commissioner A N Roy, who has been consistently denying that police used force to disperse the medicos protesting against reservation, today admitted that the ‘‘medical students were cane-charged’’.
With the Mumbai Police drawing a flak over the incident, the station in-charge of Malabar Hill police station, S Sankhe, who had ordered the cane-charge at Walkeshwar on May 13, was placed under suspension for allegedly keeping the higher-ups in the dark about the cane-charge and not providing timely information.
Roy, however, said that Sankhe was suspended in view of the inquiry pending in the issue. Denying that the medicos sustained serious injuries in the lathi-charge, Roy said all of them were made to undergo a medical examination, and there is no one with any serious injury.
‘‘Had there been any serious injury, the medicos themselves would have brought it to the notice of the media,’’ Roy said, adding, he did not wish to prejudge the incident and would put all facts on record during the inquiry.
Meanwhile, a top police official said that ‘‘of the 125 people arrested that day, 57 were not students’’. The organisers were also non-students, one of them being an event manager, and another being an orchestra manager, he claimed.
