MADRAS, India — The perception of sex and morality is once again creating problems in India.
The other day, the Madras police went into overdrive arresting couples in every public place in the city. In parks, on the beaches and even on the roads, the police became the community's morals-keepers the moment they saw couples holding hands or engaging in harmless petting. In their desperation to perform, the police turned abusive and insulting, invading private space with public abandon.
V. Suresh of the People's Union for Civil Liberties condemned the police action, describing it as "a circus," a serious invasion of privacy as well as a rankly bad method of policing. "It was like asking men and women to go back to the 1900s," he added.