Hyderabad: College girl accuses police harassment over property dispute

HYDERABAD: Although the police must not intervene in civil disputes, some police personnel of Chaitanyapuri were accused of overstepping their bounds by getting involved in property conflicts.

D. Monika, a degree first-year student, claimed on Tuesday that Chaitanyapuri constable Chandrakala had threatened her and asked her to sign on property bond papers and coerced her into registering a 200 square-yard plot in her father D. Malsur's name.

Monika, a native of Krishnapally of Mahbubnagar district, claimed that her father had registered a piece of land in Jangaon in her name when she was a minor. After she fell in love with Bala Shivamani and married him on August 16 and shifted to Chaitanyapuri colony, her father has been pressuring her to re-register the property in his name, Monika claimed. Further, she alleged that her father had approached the Chaitanyapuri police and that she was summoned to the police station on September 3.  

“I went to Chaitanyapuri police station at 11 am the same day. I was shocked when I saw my father Malsur, his employer M. Venkateshwarlu, two mahila mandali members, a local TRS politician Santosh alias Santhu, along with 30 strangers, there,” Monika alleged.

Monika claimed that she was escorted to circle inspector S. Madhusudhan's cabin where she was persuaded and subtly threatened to sign the bond. “The group of 30 people, and my father, insisted before the circle inspector that they would take me along with them and obtain the registration of the plot in my father's name,” she alleged.

“I was repeatedly threatened by constable Chandrakala for four hours before I was forced to sign bond papers expressing my willingness to execute the registration.  There are CCTVs installed in the police station. Senior police officials can crosscheck,” Monika said. She stated that that Santosh, two Mahila Mandali members, and several neighbours broke into her home and threatened to harm her and her husband if she didn't register the 200 square yard land back.

Circle inspector Madhusudhan clarified that the police tried to counsel Monika to settle the dispute. “I didn’t force her. I asked her to sign on the bond papers outside the police station,” he claimed.

This is unlawful

• A first year degree student claims that the police forced her to register a plot of land in her father's name under duress.
• 30 locals, a TRS leader, and the girl's father, D. Malsur, harassed her in the police station.
• The girl had to endure hours of harassment by the police and the gang.
•  Girl’s father was infuriated after she married a man against his will

What’s lawful?

• Police have no role to play in civil disputes
• They cannot interfere in a civil case unless directed by a competent court
•  Aggrieved parties have to approach courts for legal redressal over property disputes.
•  Telangana HC, dealing with a land dispute under the Rachakonda police commissionerate in 2019, ordered the police to stay away from civil disputes.