Replying to the debate on grants for Home, Prohibition, Excise, Police and Fire departments in the Assembly on August 25, Jayalalitha had declared as the policy of her government in respect of Police department that, “My firm opinion is that nobody has the power to interfere in the works of police department. Even the Chief Minister holding the portfolio of Police could not interfere in the works of Police department. Even the Chief Minister holding the portfolio of Police could not interfere in its functioning” (In Tamil it is ‘holding responsibility’ and hence her contention implied ‘shirking responsibility’)
When she made this pronouncement in her reply incessantly dotted with the words ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’, the members of ruling ADMK and main opposition party the DMDK, might be to naïve to understand the serious implication of the proposition. But it was surprising the members of the two communist parties or their party organs ‘Theekadir’ or ‘Janasakthi’ or their experienced leaders of tall stature like Com. R.Nallakannu and Com N.Sankaraiah, did not take objection to the statement of Jayalalitha, which in effect means ‘Police Raj’.
The so-called ‘disciplined forces’ of Police and ‘armed forces’ are meant to be under the control of the elected government in a democratic set up. That is why any excesses committed by these forces; the minister or Chief Minister concerned is asked to resign or sacked. In late 1970s in Kerala an Engineering College student named P.Rajan was suspected to be a ‘Naxalite’ by the police, in 1976 during when nationwide Emergency was in force. The police arrested and in police custody tortured as a part of interrogation. He died due to torture, especially due to something called ‘uruttal’ (‘a practice of rolling a heavy wooden log on the body of the victim’). His body was then disposed of by the police and was never recovered. The police finally confirmed that he died in custody upon a Habeas corpus suit filed by his father in Kerala High Court. K.Karunakaran was the Home Minister during Emergency. He had to resign from the post of the Chief Minister of Kerala in 1978 due to adverse judgement in the case within one month of his swearing in.
The CPM, if not the CPI, could not have forgotten the agitation it launched in Rajan case and against Karunakaran’s Police Raj during Emergency. But still if they remain conspicuously silent on Jayalalitha’s implied pronouncement of ‘Police Raj’ and let loose in practice targeting DMK functionaries and cadre, it is nothing but shameful politically opportunist compromise of the basic principles of communist movement and its tradition of fighting against police atrocities and anarchy at the behest of rulers.
Just like the Rajan case, there are innumerable instances of unchecked police excesses, brutalities and atrocities, people’s protest actions against them, strictures and adverse judgements issued by various courts including the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court judge had opined that policemen found guilty of false encounters should be awarded death sentence. The BJP government led by Narendra Modi in Gujarat is still in tribulation in courts over police excesses during post-Godhra mayhem and fake encounters in 2002. If the target of Modi regime and police were Muslims, the target of his close friend Jayalalitha and her police are DMK ranks.
Another announcement made by her in the Assembly makes clear the direction of the Police Raj let loose by her. During the debate on Housing and Urban Development and Information Technology departments in the Assembly on August 25, CPM member Thangavel was speaking about repairs for Slum Board tenements and on need for increasing the number of IT parks, when ADMK member Vetrivel unconnectedly intervened and complained about OSR space in front of Anna Arivalayam and demanded that the Corporation should take over the area. Minister Vaithilingam told him that local body elections would be held in two months when the person pointed out by the CM (‘Amma’) would be elected as Mayor when that space would be confiscated by the Corporation (The Minister, by this statement, had hinted how the local body elections would be conducted by the ADMK regime). Another Minister Munusamy intervened and said a former Minister had also had encroached municipal property and constructed a building in the name of his mother-in-law. As though he was cracking a joke CPM member A. Soundararajan asked, “When are you going to send those who ‘grabbed’ municipal property in the name of mother-in-law to the house of mother-in-law (prison)?” Another ADMK ally Krishnasamy (Puthiya Thamizhagam) accused a DMK district secretary of grabbing TNHB property. Incensed over the unnecessary diversion of the debate when her party colleague was speaking about IT parks, CPM member Balabharathi complained about members (including her party group leader A. Soundararajan) of diverting the debate in some other direction. After her bringing the debate to order (a function that the Speaker should have done) CPM member Thangavel resumed his speech and started speaking about employment opportunities to educated youth when again an ADMK member Chandrasekaran gleefully said, that Trichy prison was ready for lodging those who committed wrongs during the previous regime. As though she was waiting for or prompting her to speak that point, Jayalalitha stood up and announced, “There is a glad news for the member. This morning former DMK minister K.N.Nehru and former MLA Anbil Periasamy have been arrested” (Poor Balabharathi could not tell the Chief Minister not to divert the debate in unnecessary direction). From the wishful speeches of members of the ADMK and its allies, and the ‘glad announcement’ made by the Chief Minister, it is evident in which direction the Police Raj is directed to proceed. The police have to proceed and take actions for pleasing and gladdening Jayalalitha and her cohorts!
(It is again shameful degeneration for the Communist parties that their members vie with ruling party members in heaping praise on Jayalalitha and pleasing her by hurling abuses on DMK and reeling out accusations against DMK functionaries. CPM group leader seemed not knowing the difference between ‘encroachment’ and ‘grabbing’. If by his contention a person charged with encroachment of public land had to be jailed, all the slum dwellers in Chennai had to be lodged in prison. Will it be agreeable to their party?)
Now that the ADMK regime had created special police cell to deal with land grabbing complaints in all districts and at police headquarters and 25 special courts and the police force had to please the Chief Minister by foisting false cases against DMK functionaries at all levels and arrest them. She had reeled out statistics in the Assembly. “After the ADMK government assumed charge 8,947 complaints were received, 462 cases filed among which in 3 cases chargesheets had been filed.” Who are the landgrabbers according to the Chief Minister’s statement in the Assembly on August 24? ‘During the DMK rule, from the Ministers to grassroot workers of the DMK’, ‘all the people involved in the acts of land grabbing during the previous DMK rule, were DMK ministers, MPs, MLAs, the wide and extended family members of former Chief Minister Karunanidhi and relatives of Union and State ministers.’ Both these statements make it evident that,
1. The land grabbing complaints cells of the Police have to report everyday to the headquarters about the number of complaints received and actions taken there upon.
2. In as much as the Chief Minster herself had officially declared that only those belonging to the DMK are land grabbing, only complaints against the DMK should be booked or cooked up by hook or by crook.
So what shall the police do when the Chief Minister had officially made a categorical statement in the Assembly that all land grab offenders are only those belonging to the DMK, from top to bottom, formed special cells for dealing with land grab complaints in every district and provided with sufficient men and machinery, and mandated submitting of ‘progress report’ regularly to her through their headquarters, so that she can issue statements to the media and cheer up herself, her minions in her party and cohorts in alliance parties?
The only way for the Police to achieve ‘the record’ mandated for them is to let loose a Police Raj against the DMK rank and file. The entire police force – all wings including the Intelligence Branch have been deployed in the service of land grab cells. The police comb the records of Land Registration offices in the state, search for and find out buyers of lands who according to them are suspected to be close to some DMK functionary at any level, approach sellers, coerce or threaten them to give some complaints, file false cases and resort to midnight arrests of DMK rank and file and lodge them in distant prisons so that they do not have access to their family members, relatives and friends for any assistence. (Former Minister and Villupuram district DMK Secretary Dr. K.Ponmudy was arrested on August 31. He was presented before Tindivanam Magistrate for lodging him in judicial custody, when he pleaded for lodging him in Cuddalore prison as he was a cardiac patient. The Magistrate obliged, scored of the word Salem and wrote as Cuddalore. When the police took him there, Cuddalore prison authorities refused to accommodate him owing to ‘administrative reasons.’ In protest Ponmudy staged dharna in front of the prison for hours only after which he was taken inside. This episode exposes the crooked intention of the police and regime.)
Even during Nationwide Emergency, the police had not resorted to such perverted atrocities. The Police as well as the regime are very well aware of the result of these cases ending in fiasco. But still they derive short term pleasure in harassing DMK workers. The Intelligence Wing is put to use for gathering ‘details’ ‘unearthed’ by Special Cells in districts, concocting stories and planting them in the pliant media – newspapers, periodicals and satellite TVs. They have unleashed an undeclared ‘Operation Damage’ against the DMK. The stories are planted in order to create opinion among the public against DMK functionaries before resorting to action. All the investigative stories appearing in dailies and the so-called investigative journals are not done by their corps but are planted by the police, to test the mood and reaction of the concerned, like monkey testing the depth by dipping its baby. That is the reason for some ‘seasoned’ investigative periodicals to publish regret for publishing derogatory stories, when seriously confronted with legal consequences.
Every norm, rule and regulation is thrown to winds in their drive for achieving the targets of arrests expected of by the rulers. We see instances of violation of the ADMK government’s announcement of taking up land grab complaints pertaining to the period of DMK rule from 2006-11. For instance former Minister and Tiruchi District DMK Secretary K.N.Nehru, former MLA Anbil Periyasamy and Tiruchi Deputy Mayor M.Anbazhagan were among the seven persons arrested on the charge of forcibly acquiring a land from a doctor for building party’s district office in Tiruchi. It is not only that the complainant was present during the opening of Kalaignar Arivalayam and presented a shawl to Kalaignar and subsequently a family marriage of the doctor was held at Kalaignar Arivalayam marriage hall, but also importantly the land was bought during the previous ADMK regime between 2001 and 2006. Similar was the period of acquisition of the land in the story planted by the police in media against the family members of Union Minister Thiru M.K.Alagiri. How were ‘complaints’ relating to land deals prior to the period of DMK rule in 2006-11 were ‘received’ and acted upon by the police of ADMK regime? In that case will they register cases against Jayalalitha and others on the complaint given by for then State Secretary of CPM Com. Varadarajan on Siruthavur lands?
Jayalalitha, in her own interest will be better advised to withdraw the Police Raj against the DMK, realizing that it will boomerang as an after-effect. If she is really interested in ruling the state peacefully, she must realize the consequences of giving such leverage to the police force as summed by seasoned administrator Kalaignar as under:
“As most of the issues of relating to lands are concerned with ‘civil disputes’, the mentality of showing keen interest in civil disputes will grow in police department.
As a result, a lot of ‘kangaroo panchayats’ will sprout and reach levels whereafter they could not be controlled even if the rulers wanted. In greed for acquiring material benefits false complaints will mushroom.
When the police show excessive interest in ‘land-grab’ issues due to various reasons and ulterior motives, crimes such as murders, thefts, robberies and chain snatching will increase and the safety of innocent public will become a question mark. The cheap weapon ‘land-grab complaint’ will land in the hands of anti-social elements. The issues of ‘land-grab’ will come under the discretion of police from the purview of just law.
It will result in the danger of becoming the weapon easily used to wreck vengeance on political parties at all times.”
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