Trupti Desai taken into preventive custody for bid to protest

Women's rights activist Trupti Desai and six others were on Wednesday taken into preventive custody by police after they attempted to stage a protest near Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's office-cum- residence here over the gang-rape and murder of a woman veterinarian.

When Desai, founder of 'Bhumata Brigade,' a social rights organisation, along with some of its members reached the spot to hold a protest, police prevented them and immediately whisked them away in their vehicles.

The protesters alleged Rao was attending weddings and had no time to meet the victim's family members.

They did not have any appointment to meet the Chief Minister and assembled near the Pragathi Bhavan and tried to create law and order issue by raising provocative slogans against the Telangana government and were hence taken into preventive custody, police said.

Earlier, Desai said the Chief Minister should have visited the victim's residence.

"We will seek answers from the Chief Minister. There is public outrage over the gruesome act in the country, but the government here seems to be not serious about this incident," she alleged.

She also asked the state government to set up a fast- track court to deal with the case at the earliest.

In a letter addressed to the Chief Minister, she also demanded that the accused should be hanged and justice should be done to the woman.

The gruesome act of the 25-year-old woman veterinarian being gangraped and murdered by four men, who later burnt her body has led to massive nation-wide public outrage with protests continuing on the incident.

The charred body of the woman, working as an assistant veterinarian at a state-run hospital was found under a culvert in Shadnagar near here on November 28 morning a day after she went missing.

The four men, all lorry workers, aged between 20 and 24, were arrested on November 29.

The four are under judicial custody and lodged in high security cells in Cherlapally Central Prison here.