Former ABVP national president Dr Subbaiah Shanmugam, who was arrested on March 19 over a complaint of harassment filed by a 62-year-old woman in Chennai, has been released on bail by the Madras High Court on Monday, March 21. Subbaiah was accused of urinating at the entrance of the woman's apartment in Nanganallur and throwing rubbish outside her house.
The incident is said to have taken place after Subbaiah got into a disagreement with the woman over a parking spot in July 2020, following which the woman's family placed a CCTV camera outside her house to find who was throwing garbage at her door. When they caught Subbaiah on CCTV camera, they filed a police complaint, based on which he was booked by the Adambakkam police at that time itself.
Subbaiah had filed a bail petition at the High Court, which was taken up for immediate hearing on Monday, March 21, as an emergency case. After questioning why the case was taken up after two years and new sections were added, the judge granted bail to Subbaiah. Further hearing in the case has been adjourned to March 24.
Subbaiah was arrested and remanded till March 31 by a judicial magistrate. Meanwhile, Balaji, a relative of the complainant, wrote to the Joint Commissioner of Police, on Saturday, March 19, seeking police protection for her and said that she was receiving “overwhelming calls and subtle threats” from functionaries of BJP, ABVP and RSS. In the letter, Balaji also alleged that these functionaries had been trying to sabotage the case.
Meanwhile, the ABVP has called the arrest an act of vengeance of the DMK government. The ABVP claimed that the complainant lady had compromised as there was a 'misconception due to which the case was filed.'
Dr Subbaiah was the head of the Department of Surgical Oncology in Kilpauk Medical College during the incident, but was recently placed under suspension. He was also appointed as one of the board members of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Madurai, in October 2020, a move that received wide condemnation.