TIRUNELVELI
Condemning the “failure” of the district administration and the police in averting the tragic deaths of usury victim P. Esakkimuthu, his wife and two children and demanding action against the Collector and the Superintendent of Police, cadres of opposition parties staged a road roko near the Collectorate here on Friday.
Alleging that the official machinery’s failure to act on Esakkimuthu’s petitions actually forced him to take such an extreme decision, the opposition parties recently decided to lay siege to the Collectorate. On Friday, around 250 members of political parties marched towards the Collectorate.
When they were stopped near MGR Statue at Kokkirakulam by the police, the protesters blocked vehicular traffic and raised slogans against the State government and the district administration. A total of 175 protesters were arrested and taken to a nearby marriage hall.
The protesters said the government should invoke the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Charging Exorbitant Interest Act wherever it was required to curb usury menace.
MLAs T.P.M. Mohideen Khan and A.L.S. Lakshmanan, former Speaker R. Avudaiyappan, former MLAs S.V. Krishnan and Balabharathi, Congress office-bearers N.K.V. Sivakumar and Palani Nadar, MDMK office-bearers K.M.A. Nizam and T.M. Rajendran and CPI (M) district secretary K.G. Bhaskaran were among those arrested.
All the protesters were released in the evening.
