Police Separates Two Women Living Together As A Couple And Sends Them Back Home

Police Separates Two Women Living Together As A Couple And Sends Them Back Home

It was a groundbreaking day when Section 377 was decriminalized. A day to celebrate for the entire LGBTQ+ community. One of those days when I was extremely proud of our judicial system. But stating it and ensuring that the law is followed are two different things, aren’t they? There have been many cases where the law-abiding police force has separated two homosexual, consenting adult couples and sent them back to their parents. In a very recent case, Salem police separated two adult women in a relationship and sent them back to their parents.

Recently, two twenty-one-year-olds, who met in a college in Salem’s Thalaivasal, ran away to Chennai to settle down there. The duo told their respective parents in July of this year that they were going to go collect their transfer certificates but later when they met, they decided to elope.

One of the women was also married off to a man by her parents. When both these women did not return home, their parents and her husband filed a missing complaint report with the police. And it was this complaint that pushed the Salem police force to track these two women down. 

And the Salem police did track down these two women to Chennai’s Kannanagi Nagar, where they were living with a group of women. The Salem district Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) revealed that they knew that these two women were consenting adults and were living together as a couple.

But when speaking to the Salem police, they reaffirmed the fact that they did not force the two adult women to break up. According to the DSP, “They (the women) said that they wanted to come back to Kallakurichi. We then handed them over to the women police who spoke to them and gave them the options and asked whether they wanted to return to their parents. The couple said that they did it as a ‘joke’ and chose to return to their parents.”

With regards to the woman who was married off to a man, the police reports state that she had not consummated her marriage with her husband. The police report also shed light on the fact that the woman did not want to stay with her husband and so chose to return back to her parent’s house.

And even though the Madras High Court passed a judgment that protects same-sex couples. There have been multiple instances in Tamil Nadu where the police have gone ahead and separated these consenting adults in relationships. 

According to the Madras High Court, if the families of these consenting adults are filing missing case reports, then the case should be immediately dismissed and the police should not harass the couples once they have taken an affirmative statement from them. 

The women’s rights activist and lawyer Sudha Ramalingam that the practice of police to separate consenting, adult homosexual couples is quite the norm – especially when it comes to women who belong to the LGBTQ+ community. 

Sudha Ramalingam, women’s rights activist, and lawyer, in relation to the police, said, “I think especially when it comes to women – even adult women in consenting relationships – there is always the concern of custody. The concept of women having to be taken care of by their parents or their husbands is ingrained in our minds… We don’t know the pressures they would be facing which have made them take the decision to go back to their parents. It cannot be a ‘joke’ for two women to elope and live together. In such peculiar cases, the police must involve independent expert agencies and counselors or advocates to offer help and support to the women.”

And I, for one, completely agree with her. When it comes to dealing with same-sex couples and or their relationships, the police should be extra careful and sensitive towards them. And also, women -who belong to the LGBTQ+ community or not – should be made aware of their rights so that when the time comes they are not pressured into anything. 

Ritu Sanghvi

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