Four months ago, six youngsters were booked for cutting off the sacred thread of Brahmin priests in three localities in Chennai. The Madras High Court has now allowed them to be released by scrapping their detention under the Goondas Act on Wednesday.
The Chennai city police had charged six youth under the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982 on May 13.
On April 20, 50 youth were part of this thread cutting act and the police had arrested six people, Ravanan, Divakar, Gopinath, Pradeep, Prabakar and Nandakumar, on the same day.
Their families had filed habeas corpus petitions in the high court saying their detention was illegal. The families claimed that the authorities had falsely stated that the detainees belonged to Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) and were affiliated to Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam. The families said that the youth did not participate in any such offence as alleged by the police.
The petition said that the arrest memo, arrest intimation and remand orders were not given to the accused. The families also claim that the orders were published without following the procedures, as stated in the act.
According to The Times of India, they said, “There is no [evidence] to show that the detenues are habitual offenders... to be detained under the Goondas Act."