“People's faith in the judicial system has been restored,” Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Jayalalithaa said on Tuesday responding to a question on the arrest of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
At a press conference at Fort St. George here, Ms. Jayalalithaa said: “Finally, the law is taking its course. Action is being taken according to the law. After a long time, people of this country have begun to regain faith in the judicial process.”
To a question on Ms. Kanimozhi seeking bail on the ground of gender, Ms. Jayalalithaa said: “That argument is wrong. In politics, you cannot expect any concession to be shown because you are a woman. Similarly, where criminal activities are concerned, one cannot expect any leniency because one is a woman.”
On the reported observation of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Kumaran Pathmanathan on the influence of DMK in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, she said: “We have always said that it was the DMK that was behind the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi… in an indirect way.”
Asked about the LTTE leader's comment that if the LTTE got the chance, it would have tried to kill her, Ms. Jayalalithaa said, “Well, I have been living with death threats since 1991. Nothing new.”
“Definitely,” was her answer when asked whether she would pursue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the issue of poor progress of the Indian government's housing project for the internally-displaced Sri Lankan Tamils.
Asked whether the Union Home Ministry had given the State government any specific input on the arrest of Mohamed Niaz, who hailed from Melur in Madurai, for his alleged links to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's hiding place in Abbottabad of Pakistan, the Chief Minister replied in the negative.
