NCW team visits Amaravati

A team of National Commission for Women (NCW) visited Amaravati villages on Sunday to probe the alleged police atrocities on women protesters.

While the people of 29 Amaravati villages and other parts of Guntur and Krishna districts are agitating against the Jaganmohan Reddy government’s anticipated shifting of the capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam from the last four weeks, on Friday women took an active lead in the protests.

Citing Section 144 was in force, the police personnel have detained scores of women who came out on the streets in Amaravati and nearby Vijayawada city.

The police have reportedly used excessive force on the women in some cases, leading to the protesters being injured.

“Getting 100s of messages that women participating in peaceful protest on farmer’s issue in Amaravati are been taken to police station and are in detention beyond 6 pm. Andhra Pradesh CM, please tell your police to let women go back to their homes. Sending a team to meet women farmers,” NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma had tweeted on Friday.

On Sunday, the NCW team met the aggrieved women at Rayapudi and Thullur and also enquired with local administration and police officials about the incident. Guntur MP Galla Jayadev accompanied the team.

“Will wait for the report from my team and take the next step,” NCW chief Sharma who said she also spoke to senior police officials, tweeted.

On Sunday, ex-minister and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s son Lokesh tweeted a video of a huge police contingent marching in Amaravati villages warning locals of restrictions on public movement in the area.

TDP president Naidu protested the police stopping a bike rally of the TDP cadres in support of Amaravati agitation.

“The state administration and police are snatching our Constitutional right to protest. They are not even sparing women visiting temples,” Naidu said, criticising the imposition of Section 144.

Later in the evening, Naidu went to a protest rally in Narasaraopet of Guntur district.