Members of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have taken serious objection to a fence erected at Usilampatti near Ponnamaravathy in the district, which prevented Dalits from using a pathway leading to a village temple.
A team of representatives led by M. Chinnadurai, State executive member of the CPI (M) and M. Udaiyappan, district secretary of the Front, visited the village on Wednesday and inspected the fence which has been laid close to the backyard of the houses of Dalits along a road leading to Sri Chinna Karuppar temple.
In a petition to the District Collector, they demanded that the fence be dismantled immediately .
Kavivarman, one of the team members, said caste Hindus in the village had put up the fence in a phased manner with an ulterior motive. The upper caste members had ‘duped the Dalits’ by erecting the fence under the pretext of keeping the pathway to the shrine neat and tidy. “But, in course of time, Dalits were denied entry through the pathway,” he said. Though the Dalits have been pressing the officials to permit them to use the pathway, no remedy had been evolved so far, he charged. Police said they had not received any complaint in this regard so far.
