The seizure of gutkha and pan masala from a betel nut manufacturing unit in Kannampalayam by the Coimbatore rural police on April 28 was a cover-up operation, for which Municipal Administration Minister S.P. Velumani and Superintendent of Police Pa. Moorthy should have been arrested, DMK working president M.K. Stalin said here on Friday.
Addressing reporters after visiting arrested party workers at the Coimbatore Central Prison, he said justice and fairness demanded that the duo was arrested over the raid which, according to him, was a cover-up operation aimed at misleading the Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over the probe into the gutkha scam following a Madras High Court order in a case filed by the DMK.
‘Authoritarian move’
But the police arrested DMK workers who had sought a fair investigation and wanted the truth to be revealed. This was an authoritarian move on the part of the State government, the DMK leader said.
Mr. Stalin alleged that the raid was an attempt to shield Health and Family Welfare Minister C. Vijaya Baskar, Director General of Police T.K. Rajendran and former Chennai Police Commissioner S. George, who were alleged to have taken bribes from gutkha manufacturers.
“The DMK is confident that the CBI would carry out a thorough probe into the gutkha scam by initiating action against the guilty. If not, the party, which will form the next government, will arrest the three persons [Mr. Vijaya Baskar, Mr. Rajendran and Mr. George] and also those who helped facilitate the cover-up,” he said.
Earlier, addressing party workers during a protest near the Coimbatore South Taluk office, Mr. Stalin said Mr. Vijaya Baskar should have resigned immediately after his name cropped up in the gutkha scam, and then proved his innocence. This was what the DMK did by asking the then Union Ministers A. Raja and Dayanidhi Maran to resign in the wake of allegations of their involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation case and the Aircel-Maxis case respectively, he noted.
