The Sulur police on Tuesday arrested seven DMK cadre who had staged a protest at Kannamapalayam where Coimbatore rural police raided a betel nut product manufacturing unit on Saturday and seized large quantities of gutka and pan masala.
Singanallur MLA N. Karthik of DMK, who led the protest, is among 10 persons booked in connection with the incident.
The police said that they were unable to trace Mr. Karthik on Tuesday.
The police arrested Thalapathy Murugesh, P.S. Selvaraj, K.N. Shanmugam, Suresh Kumar, Paramsivam, Kabilan and Selvaraj.
They were produced before Sulur Judicial Magistrate C. Vediyappan on Tuesday who remanded them in judicial custody.
The police said that efforts were on to trace Mr. Karthik, Mathappur Thangaraju and Sundaram.
The case was registered on Saturday based on a petition submitted by Sulur Sub-Inspector Manoj Kumar.
They have been booked under Sections 147, 148, 341, 294 (b), 353, 506 (2) and 188 of the IPC. As per the FIR, the Sub-Inspector complained that Mr. Karthik and other cadre wanted to see the raid happening in the unit which was cordoned off by his team of policemen on Saturday.
Road blocked
When the police refused, the cadre allegedly scolded them using filthy language, disrupted the police from discharging their duty and intimidated them. They later moved to Kannampalayam – Kalangal Road where they staged a road blockade causing disruption to traffic, the FIR said.
During the protest, the DMK cadre had reportedly raised slogans against the State Government and accused AIADMK Ministers of having involvement in the gutka scam.
