With police personnel being given instructions to prevent any protest by teachers and government employees, they went all out to ensure that they did not reach either Wallajah road or Kamarajar Salai in the city, to take out a rally.
Police personnel even went to lodges where the members of the Jacto-Geo were staying and arrested them ahead of the protest. On Anna Salai, a few policemen in plainclothes were found making inquiries with pedestrians on whether they were government employees or teachers who came for agitation. They were looking for the agitators inside buses and autos, and passengers who were waiting at a bus stop were questioned.
In spite of the restrictions, the agitators managed to reach the State Guest House. The police bundled them into police vans. Some of them gave the police the slip and resumed a sit-in protest on the road.
A sub-inspector (SI) attached with the Intelligence Service was on surveillance duty near Walajah Road while the agitators were being arrested. Mistaking his identity, an Inspector of police asked the SI to get into the police vehicle, and an altercation broke out between the two. The Inspector slapped the SI and later apologised after he realised that the man was a colleague.
Police teams conducted searches on trains and buses that arrived from the southern districts in Tambaram and Perungalathur. More than 500 policemen were deployed in Perungalathur and Tambaram bus terminuses and at Tambaram railway stations to identify them.
