The bandh call given by some Opposition parties for total prohibition evoked good response in Kanyakumari district while it was lukewarm elsewhere in south Tamil Nadu on Tuesday.
Almost all shops and business establishments remained shut across Kanyakumari district where 34 buses, including one operated by an educational institution, were damaged in stone pelting around Marthandam and Kaliyakavilai. Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation buses were operated with police escort between the two towns.
Hundreds of volunteers belonging to different political outfits were held in the region for attempting to picket Tasmac shops and roads even as an uneasy calm prevailed in Unnamalaikadai town panchayat where Gandhian S.K. Sasi Perumal died while staging a protest on Friday.
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Two Congress MLAs — S. Vijayadharini and J.G. Prince — submitted a petition to Kanyakumari Collector urging him to give up the move to open a new Tasmac shop in Vagaivilai in Nattalam panchayat in lieu of the Unnamalaikadai shop, which remains closed.
Immediately after submitting the petition, the MLAs downed the shutters of a Tasmac shop at Derik Junction in Nagercoil. Nattalam panchayat president C. Devaraj was arrested in connection with the incident. Jagannathan of DMDK was held for locking up a Tasmac shop in Nagercoil. A few private colleges and schools in the district had declared a holiday.
AIADMK district secretary N. Thalavai Sundaram and MLAs K. T. Pachaimal and Nanjil A. Murugesan went around Meenakshipuram area in Nagercoil, appealing to shop owners to keep their establishments open.
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Except in Sivaganga, where many shops remained closed, the response was not appreciable in other districts.
The Kalingapatti panchayat in Tirunelveli district passed a resolution for removal of the local Tasmac shop. At a meeting, presided over by V. Ravichandran, president, the panchayat sought the removal of the shop and sent it to Collector M. Karunakaran.
In Western region, traders shut shop only in Gudalur town of the Nilgiris district. In other places such as Coimbatore, Erode and Salem, Tasmac shops functioned with police protection. In Central districts, there was poor response for the bandh call. At Karur and Nagapattinam districts, shops remained closed in few towns. Over 4,500 protesters were held across the State and were released later in the evening, police said.