A group of 14 members of the Tamilaga Makkal Puratchi Kazhagam were arrested on Thursday when they attempted to stage a protest over the Vengaivayal issue in Pudukkottai town.
The group decided to observe a one-day fast to condemn the naming of three Dalit residents of the village as the accused in the chargesheet filed by the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) in the case where human faeces were dumped into the overhead tank that supplied drinking water to the Dalits. They also demanded that the real culprits in the case be booked.
The police said members of the outfit, led by its State president Aranga Gunasekaran, were arrested in front of the CB-CID office in the town as they assembled for the protest. The CB-CID recently filed a chargesheet before a Special Court for the Exclusive Trial of Cases Registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which named J. Muraliraja, B. Sudharshan, and K. Muthukrishnan as the accused.
Protests in Vengaivayal
Meanwhile, the protest being staged by the residents of Vengaivayal against the CB-CID chargesheet continued on Thursday. Another section of village residents staged a protest on Thursday after the police stopped the relatives of an elderly woman who had died from entering the village. The deceased was the grandmother of Muraliraja.
The police said personnel had been deployed at the village and its surroundings to prevent the entry of outsiders. The villagers withdrew the protest after the relatives were granted permission to enter the village.
Published – January 30, 2025 11:29 pm IST