Saturday’s meeting at the Mullivaikkal Memorial, erected at Vilar near here as homage to Tamils who lost their lives in Sri Lanka, ran into trouble with the police seizing 20 loudspeakers from the premises in the early hours of Sunday on the charge that the meeting went beyond the deadline.
Three persons – T .Sekaran, who had supplied the audio system on rent, and his assistants Vijayakumar and Ramesh – were arrested in this connection.
The memorial was opened on Wednesday after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court cleared its inauguration. Subsequently, the Bench gave permission for conducting a series of events in connection with the inauguration on November 8, 9 and 10. Saturday’s programmes at the private memorial went on till late in the night with film director Seeman delivering a speech towards the end.
According to the organisers of the event, the police led by G. Dharmarajan, Superintendent of Police, Thanjavur, came to the venue at around 2.30 a.m. on Sunday and seized the loudspeakers. They also took 10 persons present at the venue to the Taluk police station. Later, police arrested Sekaran and two others and let off the others. Police said the organisers should have wound up the meeting up by 10 p.m.
The organisers, however, claimed that they had switched off the loudspeakers and used only an audio system at the venue.
P. Nedumaran, president, World Tamils’ Confederation, told reporters on Sunday that a case had been registered on the charge of using loudspeakers beyond the stipulated time and they would face it in the court.
Meanwhile, a sculpture depicting Balachandran, son of LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran, was declared open by Mr.Nedumaran at the memorial on Saturday.
On Friday, the Thanjavur Taluk Police registered a case against Mr.Nedumaran and five others for putting up hoardings with the images of Prabhakaran.
Only by standing united and rising above caste and religious differences can people pay real homage to those who lost their lives for the cause of Tamils and Tamil language, said R. Nallakannu, Communist Party of India leader, here on Sunday at the concluding day of the three-day events of the inaugural function of the memorial.
