Police go on rampage outside Chennai Prison

By Radha Venkatesan

CHENNAI, JUNE 30. As the Chennai Central Prison played host to the former Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, the Stanley viaduct adjoining the jail looked like a war zone today. The police went on the rampage and resorted to several rounds of lathicharge against the sloganeering DMK men, who gathered outside the prison.

While a DMK sympathiser suffered bleeding head injury in the lathicharge and was rushed to the nearby Government General hospital, scores of partymen sustained minor injuries. Besides, a couple of scribes were also hit.

When the police van carrying Mr. Karunanidhi arrived around 7 p.m., partymen gathered in full strength to protest his arrest. A high-voltage drama unfolded as the former Chief Minister squatted on the ground in the jail complex, protesting the authorities' move to lodge him in the cell, without taking him to the hospital.

The Principal Sessions Judge, while remanding him, had directed that he should only be taken to the hospital, Mr. Karunanidhi's counsel insisted. After a half-hour of protest, the former Chief Minister walked into the jailer's room, even as partymen cried out: ``Thalaiva, Unakka indha gathi''.

As the DMK sympathisers lined up along the Stanley viaduct bridge and the Cooum bank adjoining the jail complex, raised abusive slogans against the police and the AIADMK government, the ``riot'' police swung into action and lathicharged them.

When the protesters ran into the adjacent GH quarters, the police stormed in and beat up a few residents, prompting them to block the entrance to the quarters. Meanwhile, from the right flank of the bridge, protesters began hurling stones at the police, sparking another round of lathicharge, leaving scores of women and men injured.

Around 9 a.m, an eight-member team, including cardiologist Dr. T. Subramaniam, orthopaedician, Mr. K. Chandran, neurologist Dr. Gopinath, checked up Mr. Karunanidhi. While they refused to talk to the waiting media persons, Mr. Karunanidhi's personal doctor, Dr. Gopal, claimed that the former Chief Minister was not ``fit'' to stay in the prison. His blood pressure was elevated, he added.

An hour later, the medical team came back with a mobile x-ray and ECG equipment. After the doctors left, the police began moves to shift him to Vellore prison, to which Mr. Karunanidhi and his family members stoutly objected. The former Chief Minister threatened to go on hunger strike if he was taken to Vellore.

Meanwhile, the news about the ``arrest'' of Mr. Karunanidhi's son and the Chennai Mayor, Mr. M. K. Stalin, spread and the distraught partymen gathered again on the Stanley viaduct bridge, shouting slogans. Predictably, another round of lathicharge followed, and the partymen ran helter skelter.

When the Chennai Mayor was brought in around 11.15 a.m, the emotional scenes peaked as wailing DMK women and men, asked the police to arrest them as well. They were chased away.

About an hour later, the Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs, Mr. Pon. Radhakrishnan, accompanied by State BJP general secretary, Mr. L. Ganesan, and the MGR-ADMK leader, Mr. S. Thirunavukkarasu, came to the jail complex, but they were refused permission to meet Mr. Karunanidhi. The former DMK Ministers, including former Law and Prison Administration Minister, Mr. Aladi Aruna, and the former MLA, Mr. T. Rajendherr, were allowed inside the jail complex only after a half-hour squabble with the police. The DMK ally and DPI convener, Mr. R. Tirumavalavan, was denied permission to meet Mr. Karunanidhi.

After keeping Mr. Stalin within the jail complex but outside the prison cell for over three hours, the police informed him that he was being shifted to the Madurai Central Prison for ``administrative purpose''. Instantly, the Mayor sat in dharna, demanding a ``written statement''. After the statement was furnished, he agreed to being shifted to the Madurai prison.

As the smiling Mr. Stalin left, waving to the crowds of partymen, the police decided to lodge Mr. Karunanidhi in the Chennai prison. ``Both the Mayor and the former Chief Minister, have not had food. Mr. Karunanidhi only had buttermilk'', Mrs. Durga Stalin wept as she came out.

An hour later, the arrested Union Minister, Mr. T. R. Baalu, too was brought to the prison. Unfazed by the series of police lathicharge, the DMK men kept gathering outside the police complex till late in the evening.

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