Hardly a day passes without some news about murders, seizure of narcotic drugs, worsening law and order, chain, bag and mobile snatching, burglaries, kidnapping in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Former Chief Minister Edapadi K Palaniswamy (EPS) on 24th alleged that law and order situation in TN has deteriorated and people are panic-stricken over the increase in incidents of murder and robbery. In a statement, he claimed, “reports say there were incidents of 15 murders in the last 36 hours. All these murders don’t seem to have been accidental but due to previous enmity and premeditated. Reports also say that the police had been negligent in not taking proper action and some who were killed, had complained to the police that their lives were in peril”. The former CM has listed out murders in Chennai, Natham, Tindivanam, Koivilpatti, Villupuram, Krishnagiri, Kallakurichi, Mayiladuthurai, Perambalur, Tirunelveli,Manimangalam, Vedaranyam, Sivakasi.
Coming down heavily on CM Stalin, who had recently said he was directly monitoring the law and order , EPS said “is this the way law and order is maintained?… the CM who holds police portfolio should be held responsible for the murders ”.
Refuting the charges, TN police in its official twitter handle, has said there were 7 murders on 22nd and 5 murders on 23rd August. Several murder cases mentioned in media were happened previous days and were due to previous enmity and family disputes. During the current year from Jan-July there were 940 murder cases and in the previous in the same period there were 925 and 1041 murders in 2019”.
The former CM did not include events like the spate of robberies, kidnapping for gain, gang rapes, sexual assaults on girls, slew of suicides of school and college students, snatching of mobile, gold chains and bags, forceful abduction of girls to get married, love jihad, religious conversions, attempts to murder, day light killings on busy city roads, rampant corruption in government offices, swindling of depositors money by fly-by night non-financial promoters, and so on.
Porkodi who is the eighth ward secretary of Angamangalam Panchayat Council for the DMK, caught red-handed in a surveillance camera stealing a gold chain in a jewellery shop located at the North Car street in Tiruchendur on August 20.
A Sri Lankan Tamil Chandrakumar, wanted in jewelry heist, was arrested on the 21st from Mandapam Refugees camp. During questioning, he was found to be a member of banned LTTE. Another Sri Lankan Abdul Rias Khan, who was involved chain of robberies Chennai, Coimbatore, Ramanathapuram and other places, was arrested from his Puducherry hideout.
Tirupur, called as Dollar City, has become a safe hideout for criminals. It has already been facing the illegal Rohingyas and Bangaladesh migrants, who work in hosiery, power loom, ginning mills. A Maharashtra native Srinivasa Mulla Koudu (23), married a local women wife Anjali (20) following a love affair. During vehicle check, police found him a member of Maoist and supplied explosives to them. A team of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh took him for further probe. Already NIA arrested people linked to IS and a maoist couple who were working as a laborer here. Also there have been arrests of Bangladeshi Muslims.
On 16th TN Crime branch police, following a tip off from a church, arrested 43-year-old- Sri Lankan woman Manuvai Maria Selvam of Colombo for allegedly obtaining an Indian passport using fake documents. She worked at a church as priest and her Sri Lankan passport expired in 2020. Bishop Godfrey Noble has accused her of duping him by promising to get foreign jobs and collected cash.
According to Sriram, “police are diverted to CM‘s security duties for long hours. Secondly they are specially tasked to take immediate action against BJP, RSS and Hindu outfit leader, the moment they receive complaints and leave the DMK and its allies untouched. DGP is busy in his photo shoot to show off his Cycling prowess and making statement then and there. A coterie is running the police administration in his place. This is some of the reasons for spurt in crimes. In most of the crimes, like extortions, collecting mamools from shops and street hawkers, land grabbing, sexual assaults, DMK men are involved. How can the police take actions against them? There is a minority angle too who have a free run in the state”.
Recently TN Municipal Administration Minister KN Nehru in a function said, “My PSO has become DSP. He has a capacity to do anything. He will foist a false case and crack cases successfully. He will make a person as accused and make an accused as innocent. I don’t want talk about him. He has grown with us.” It will suffice to say the background of police officials. This is not something the DSP is going to take as a compliment.
