The Hindu : Vaiko held under POTA, taken to Madurai

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 12, 2002

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Vaiko held under POTA, taken to Madurai

By Suresh Nambath

The MDMK general secretary, Vaiko, being arrested at the Chennai domestic air terminal on Thursday. — Photo: K. Gajendran.

CHENNAI JULY 11. Amid suspense and excitement at the Chennai airport, an unfazed and belligerent general secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Vaiko, was today arrested by the Tamil Nadu police under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for making speeches in support of the banned militant outfit, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

A police party from Madurai, led by the district Superintendent of Police, Ayushmani Tiwari, served the non-bailable arrest warrant on Mr. Vaiko after he emerged from the VIP lounge of the domestic terminal. He was then hurriedly taken to the waiting van for the onward journey to Madurai, where he is to be produced before the magistrate for remand tomorrow.

To be shifted to Vellore?

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, JULY 11. Mr. Vaiko is likely to be shifted to the Vellore jail on Thursday, after being remanded in the Madurai prison. Official sources told The Hindu that the move was taken to preempt an influx of visitors from the southern districts to the Madurai prison.

For a few minutes, Mr. Vaiko shook himself free of the police escort and spoke to the media. ``With the help of people's power, we will throw out the Jayalalithaa regime,'' he said. The MDMK would not be cowed down by the ``repression'' let loose by the "fascist" Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, on whose instruction the case against him had been registered under POTA. Even as a group of MDMK partymen, who had avoided the preventive arrests at the airport, shouted slogans in his support, Mr. Vaiko underscored the importance of maintaining peace in Tamil Nadu.

At the same time, he took the opportunity to hit out at Ms. Jayalalithaa, who, he said, had "ordered violence" throughout the State when she was convicted in a corruption case in 2000. The consequent burning of buses had resulted in the death of three girls in Dharmapuri, he said. ``In our agitation, we won't force the closure of shops, we won't throw stones, we won't attack people, but we would fight till the end. With the help of people's power, we would throw out the Jayalalithaa regime,'' he said before being taken away. After boarding the police van, Mr. Vaiko leaned out and showed the "thumbs up" sign to the partymen who were waving the MDMK flag. Some of them hailed him as the "leader of Tigers.''

Earlier, police had a long wait at the airport as Mr. Vaiko's scheduled Air India flight from Mumbai was delayed. He arrived by a Jet Airways plane at 4.35 p.m. By this time, police had cleared scores of MDMK volunteers who had made their way past the checks along the route to the airport.Police stood guard outside the terminal as Mr. Vaiko spent some time with the two MDMK Ministers in the Central Government, M. Kannappan and Gingee N. Ramachandran — who had arrived by an earlier flight — and his family members.

The arrest was closely monitored by Ms. Jayalalithaa who left the Secretariat only after receiving the news of Mr. Vaiko's detention.

Misuse of POTA: Karunanidhi

Reacting to the developments, the DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, said that Mr. Vaiko's arrest showed how POTA could be misused by some States. Now it was up to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, to decide on whether those provisions of POTA, which allowed for such misuse, should continue.

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