Thiruvananthapuram: The Thiruvananthapuram Press Club secretary M Radhakrishnan was arrested on Thursday for allegedly assaulting a journalist and her male friend for visiting her house late in the evening.
The arrest was made after a group of women journalists began a protest at the club since morning demanding his ouster from the secretary post and demanded his arrest based on the complaint of the woman journalist.
The Network of Women in Media (NWMI), India, also lodged a complaint with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the Kerala Women's Commission demanding stern action against him.
However, rejecting the charges, Radhakrishnan, after the arrest, claimed that he had actually tried to protect the woman journalist and her family.
The Press Club secretary was booked on Tuesday for allegedly assaulting the journalist and her male friend for visiting her house late in the evening, police said.
According to police, the woman journalist in a complaint said her male friend had visited her residence on November 30.
She alleged that Radhakrishnan had barged into her house with some people and also forcibly brought her friend there, questioning why he had visited her so late.
In the melee, he shoved her aside and assaulted the friend in front of her children, she alleged and accused him of moral policing.
Based on the complaint, police booked him on charges of wrongful confinement, house-trespass in order to commit offence and voluntarily causing hurt.
The Kerala Women's Commission also on its own registered a case against Radhakrishnan and some others.
The district committee of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) has formed a five-member panel to probe the incident and decided to suspend Radhakrishnan pending enquiry.
Earlier, the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) said it was "shocked to see the reports about the barbaric moral policing by a journalist who is also the secretary of Thiruvananthapuram Press Club against a woman journalist."
The IJU also said that the act was a "mere goondaism by a journalist thus a shame on the entire media fraternity".
"He along with his friends physically harassed the woman journalist, caused trauma to her kids besides moral policing," the IJU said.