Stepping up its drive against land grabbers, the Madurai Rural Police arrested four Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) functionaries, including the Madurai urban district secretary and former MLA G. Thalapathi, ‘Pottu' Suresh alias N. Suresh Babu and two others in connection with a land grabbing complaint here on Tuesday.
The four were produced before a Judicial Magistrate at 7.50 p.m. amid tight security from the District Police Office.
The arrest follows a complaint from a couple, Pappa and her husband Sivanandi Thevar, that they were forced to sell their land measuring 5.14 acres in Tirumangalam near here for a ‘paltry' sum. Though they objected to the transaction a couple of years ago and filed a complaint with the police, the matter remained under investigation. Hence, they preferred a fresh complaint now in which they accused the DMK functionaries of being behind the transaction.
Superintendent of Police Asra Garg had directed the District Crime Branch police to investigate the case. The DCB police had issued summons to all the four persons to appear before the investigation officer for examination on Tuesday.
As a large number of DMK functionaries, including former MLAs P. Moorthy and S. S. Ghouse Batcha, some councillors and party advocates had assembled before the District Police Office, tension prevailed in the area.
Mr. Garg said the police had examined the documents submitted to them by the complainant. There was no political element to the arrest and the police had done their duty based on the offences made out from the complaint as per law. The interrogation of all the accused went on for over five hours in the presence of ADSP (Crime) Myilvaganan and team, a police officer said. Cases under IPC Sections 387, 406, 420, 506 (2) among others were registered against G. Thalapathi, ‘Pottu' Suresh alias Suresh Babu, ‘Kodi' Chandrasekar and Krishnapandian.
So far, 35 cases were registered on charges of land grabbing in the Madurai Rural Police limits and 30 persons were arrested, Mr. Garg said. Apart from Madurai, complaints of land grabbing were coming in from the southern districts to the special cell, a senior officer in the south zone said.
The DMK functionaries shouted slogans against the police and the AIADMK government for levelling “baseless charges” against their leaders. The party would would face the cases legally, they said. Thalapathi is the first district secretary in the DMK to be arrested after the AIADMK came to power, a DMK man said.
