Police red-faced over PMK leader arrest

Chennai, July 7: Two days after the police arrested senior PMK functionary J Gurunathan alias ‘Kaduvetty’ Guru for threatening a former cadre, the complainant came forward to deny the charges, boosting PMK’s claim that the case was foisted to entrap Guru.

Gunasekaran, a former PMK man who joined the AIADMK, was attacked by a four-member gang including Guru at the latter’s residence on April 30, according to police in the latest case filed against the PMK strongman. Another complaint, this time from a woman cadre Selvi Selvam, was also cited as a pending case against Guru, who made the controversial speech that threatened attacks on senior DMK leaders.

However, on Monday, the authorities’ case was dealt a blow when both complainants reportedly expressed their desire to withdraw the cases against Guru, president of Vanniyar Sangam, a casteist outfit from which the PMK evolved.

“This shows that the cases registered against Guru were fabricated by the police at the behest of the DMK and its Government,” said PMK president G K Mani.

“Both these complainants have said today that the police threatened them into filing the complaints. Now we are looking at the legal steps that are to be taken to secure Guru’s release,” said K Balu, president of PMK’s legal wing.

Meanwhile, party cadres staged protests at many places across Tamil Nadu, especially in the Vanniyar belt in north Tamil Nadu. At Tiruppur near Coimbatore, a state-owned bus was torched by unknown persons on Monday morning. District police allege that PMK workers could be responsible for it though party leaders denied the charge.

Protests at Perambalur, Ariyalur, Villupuram and other areas where the party is strong also turned destructive with the party cadres allegedly damaging Government buses and property.

Alleging a nexus between the police and their political masters, Mani said that his party was of the view that most of the violent protests that happened in the state following Guru’s arrest, including burning of the bus in Tiruppur, were their handiwork to malign the party.

Ariyalur district police, who arrested Guru on Saturday morning, denied that they had compelled anybody to give a complaint against Guru, and were approaching the court to get Guru under their custody for questioning. “Once the chargesheet is filed, the petition can be withdrawn only in the court. Guru has been remanded till July 18 in the case and that will continue,” said Ariyalur Superintendent of Police Krishnamoorthi.

... contd.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.