Author: B R Haran
Publication: Vijayvaani.com
Date: May 7, 2009
URL: http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=555
In a shocking incident on the evening of Saturday,
2 May, several hundred hooligans belonging to the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (MDMK) and Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) attacked an Army convoy
on the Nilambur Bypass Road near Coimbatore. Around 300 army personnel were
returning from Hyderabad after completing a three-month training camp, to
their headquarters at Madukkarai in Coimbatore via Salem.
Early in the morning, when the convoy of over
fifty trucks was passing through Salem, the MDMK and PDK cadres along with
goons of Tamil-chauvinist and pro-LTTE outfits like Tamil Desiya Iyakkam and
Thamizhaga Ilaignar Iyakkam, attempted to block the bypass, charging that
the tanks, weapons, arms and ammunition were being transported to Sri Lanka
to aid the Sri Lankan army in its war against the LTTE. Only the timely intervention
of the Salem police thwarted attempts to attack the convoy; the police convinced
the PDK and MDMK hooligans that the army personnel were returning with only
their personal belongings after completing training in Hyderabad.
The unruly mob then spread the word about
the travelling army convoy to their cadre in Coimbatore, who now lay in wait
for the convoy to reach Coimbatore. In this well-planned plot to attack the
army, hundreds of cadres belonging to these parties assembled on the Nilambur
bypass road pretending to stage a demonstration. The media, with prior information
about the impending clash, gathered to cover the so-called protest demonstration,
but did not bother to caution the police.
Despite an alert from the Salem police, the
Coimbatore police were not adequately prepared to deal with what followed.
The first five trucks were stopped, attacked, tyres deflated, personal belongings
like bedrolls, trunk boxes, tents and clothing thrown on the ground and set
on fire in wanton destruction. One driver was grievously assaulted. The army
personnel ran away to inform the trucks following behind. Other army personnel,
who came rushing on hearing about the attack, took safe custody of the weapons,
according per eye-witnesses. The witnesses reported retaliation in defense
by the army personnel.
Senior police officers arrived with the Rapid
Action Force and Armed Reserve Police to control the situation and pacify
the army personnel. Some media persons and civilians were allegedly hurt in
the melee. Coimbatore police arrested 18 cadres belonging to MDMK, PDK and
PUCL and registered cases against them under Sections 147 (unlawful assembly),
148 (unlawful assembly with deadly weapons), 324 (causing grievous hurt) and
294 (b) (using obscene language) of IPC. Members of various media organisations
demonstrated against the army personnel for allegedly attacking some of them.
They demanded the case be investigated by local police and not referred to
Army authorities; hence police registered cases against twenty army personnel
as well. Clearly, as in the case of the lawyers' attack against the police,
a section of the media is allied with Tamil secessionists and has positioned
itself against our men in uniform - the Army and the Police.
A scrutiny of the events clearly indicates a pre-conceived and well-executed
attack. As the convoy was allowed to continue its journey through Salem and
Erode without incident, the police did not expect trouble in Coimbatore. Anticipating
lowered defenses of the Coimbatore police, the anti-national forces came well-prepared
to attack the convoy in the guise of a protest demonstration. They clearly
outnumbered the police and by the time additional forces were summoned, enough
damage had been done. There are reports that the mob even attempted to set
fire to the fuel tanks of the army trucks.
Initial investigations and interrogation of
the apprehended hooligans have confirmed a huge conspiracy behind this daring
act. The Sulur Police have registered cases against 250 persons and 19 persons,
including Ramakrishnan, general secretary of PDK, Ponchandran of PUCL, and
Sivapriyan of Tamil Nationalist Movement. Many hooligans have allegedly escaped
to Chennai and Madurai and crossed over to Kerala.
The police were able to identify the culprits
and gather evidence against them from complete video recordings collected
from media personnel. The police strongly suspect that many culprits could
have crossed over to Kerala as pro-LTTE elements have a safe refuge there
in the coastal areas. PDK leader Ramakrishnan reputedly has close connections
with LTTE boss Prabhakaran, and according to police records, even visited
North Lanka to meet him in the 1980s; he reportedly conducted photo-exhibitions
on the war-front and sufferings of Lankan Tamils.
Besides the pro-LTTE and Tamil-chauvinist
elements, the involvement of PUCL members gives a different dimension to the
issue. The Chennai edition of The Times of India (4 May 2009) reported that
PUCL members were involved in the attack. In the past two decades, PUCL is
known to have become a front for Naxalites, Maoists and Jihadis, and its sustained
campaign against the army in Kashmir and in support of secessionists and militants
in the name of human rights, is characteristic of its anti-establishment functioning.
It has acted against the governments in Gujarat and Orissa (Kandhamal) in
the aftermath of communal riots.
It must be noted that Binayak Sen, PUCL vice
president, has been incarcerated in Chattisgarh for allegedly helping Maoists.
It has been reported that Kavita Srivastava, secretary PUCL and Rajasthan
unit's general secretary, attended the 'National Political Conference' in
February 2009 in Calicut, organized by the 'Popular Front of India,' an amalgamation
of Islamic fundamentalist outfits.
Most PUCL office-bearers are involved in activities
helping militant and separatist forces in the name of 'human rights;' a majority
are 'advocates.' K.G. Kannabiran, President PUCL, and celebrities like Suzanne
Arundhati Roy, have advocated 'clemency' for terrorists like Afzal Guru. The
organization gave a tough time to the government and men in uniform in support
of Rajiv Gandhi's assassins and sandalwood brigand Veerappan's aides.
Maoists and Naxalites have a typical style of executing operations. They normally
storm police stations, prisons, attack CRPF vehicles and police camps; of
late they have started to hijack trains. The recent incident of hijacking
a suburban train in Chennai, resulting in the death of four people and injuries
to over a dozen, must be seen in this context. Within days, the attack on
the army convoy followed.
This is a clear indication of increasing infiltration
by Maoists into Tamil Nadu and their sprouting new fronts in pro-LTTE parties
and Tamil-chauvinist outfits. Initial investigations in Coimbatore reveal
a clandestine connection between the arrested persons and the LTTE. Some have
been involved in smuggling arms, ammunition and spare parts for land mines
to the LTTE during the 1980s.
The Maoist-Naxal menace is not new to Tamil
Nadu, and in fact it has a history spanning more than three decades. The districts
of Salem, Dharmapuri, Theni, Dindigul and Madurai were notorious for Maoist
activities and the Maoist-LTTE nexus is known. The LTTE has been training
Maoist and Tamil separatist elements and their nexus with sandalwood brigand
Veerappan is a violent chapter in Tamil Nadu's history of 'Law and Order'.
The 'Communist Party of India (Maoist)' was
actually formed in September 2004 with the merger of two banned Naxalite parties,
namely the 'Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist)' and 'Maoist Communist
Centre of India'. As this new formation was given to violent anti-national
and anti-social activities, the Tamil Nadu government banned it in July 2005.
With the advent of the DMK government in 2006, there has been an alarming
increase in LTTE and Maoist activities, and the Chief Minister had to appoint
the immensely popular ADGP K. Vijayakumar, former chief of the STF who finally
nabbed and killed Veerappan, once again as the Chief of STF, this time to
neutralise the Maoists. ADGP Vijayakumar, considered Jayalalithaa's blue-eyed
boy, was relegated to an insignificant department earlier.
As expected, Vijayakumar's STF and the 'Q'
branch swung into action and results started to show almost immediately. A
dozen Maoists, clandestinely engaged in recruitment of cadres, were captured
along with some of their more notorious leaders who had managed to escape
police dragnet for years. Among the captured, one was an engineering student
(Muthuselvam) and the other a law student (Velmurugan).
When questioned by the police, all those apprehended
confessed that they had been recruited by the PWG (People's War Group) to
create a 'liberated zone' in the Western Ghats and that they had links with
Maoists in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Nepal. Maps of Chennai and Madurai, along
with blueprints of vital civilian installations, were seized from them. As
the Tamil Nadu police tightened its grip, LTTE sought safe refuge in north
Andhra Pradesh. Both LTTE and Maoists have been covertly using many industrial
units without the knowledge of the proprietors to make key components for
rockets, grenades and mortars and many such consignments have been seized
by police in both states. Maoist and LTTE activities, which rose in 2006 and
2007, started to slump in 2008.
But with the imminent decimation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the politics of
Tamil Eelam, combining dangerously with Lok Sabha elections in India, gathered
momentum and the DMK government, caught in a dilemma, could not employ demonstrable
force against pro-LTTE groups and their violent acts. Church backing for pro-LTTE
activities was also a reason for the DMK's weak response.
This emboldened the pro-LTTE elements to flaunt
their affiliations and indulge in blatantly treacherous activities, starting
from the lawyers' unrest, which prevailed for over five months from November
2008 to March 2009. Indeed, the disorder caused by a section of the legal
fraternity started with the celebration of LTTE chief Prabhakaran's birthday
in November 2008 inside the Court premises, and culminated with the physical
assault on Janata Party president Dr. Subramanian Swamy on 27 February and
violent clash between lawyers and police on 29 February 2009. The lawyers'
unrest exposed the deep infiltration of Maoist and pro-LTTE elements into
the legal fraternity of the state and the clandestine support they get from
the Church.
As the pro-LTTE parties failed to induce the
student community to rise in support of the LTTE, and as they could not create
a massive uprising in support of the LTTE even after stage-managing the self-immolation
of a dozen individuals and the lawyers' unrest, they are frustrated and desperate.
The hijacking of the suburban train in Chennai and the attack on the army
convoy in Coimbatore is a sign of that desperation. The extraordinary restraint
shown by the Army in the face of this outrageous provocation has averted what
may have turned into yet another opportunity for the human rights industry,
which by definition is fast acquiring the nomenclature of a front for terrorists
to castigate our armed forces.
The Army agreed to treat the attack on its convoy as an 'aberration,' but
warned that troops would retaliate in self-defence as per law if such incidents
recurred. Maj-Gen. E.J. Kochekkan, General Officer in Commanding, Andhra,
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala area, said the troops had "practiced
restraint" when the pro-LTTE elements attacked the convoy on May 2. He
warned, "The incident is an aberration and not a threat per se. It should
not be repeated. If such incidents became a pattern, active measures will
have to be adopted and when it gets adopted, then the results could be much
worse and catastrophic. It must be avoided at all costs. If it continues,
troops will take action in self-defence as the law permits."
Barring State Congress leaders, Dr. Subramanian
Swamy, and Hindu Munnani president Ramagopalan, no political leader, even
from the BJP, condemned the attack on the army convoy. MDMK President Vaiko,
whose cadres were behind these dastardly acts, was conspicuously silent, as
was his leader Jayalalithaa, who waxed eloquent about her patriotism in response
to Kapil Sibal's barb against her seditious demand for Tamil Eelam. Jayalalithaa
spoke of an unrealistic Indian military operation against Sri Lanka. Adding
insult to injury, their alliance partner and CPI leader Thomas Pandian condemned
the arrest of MDMK/ PDK/ PUCL goons!
While Dr. Swamy sought the immediate attention
of the Election Commission, Coimbatore-based Congress leader S.R. Balasubramaniam
lodged a complaint with the Inspector General of Police West Zone, demanding
that the arrested culprits belonging to MDMK/PDK/PUCL be charged for attempted
murder. He rightly felt that the incident exposed a deep-rooted conspiracy
of several organisations known for their secessionist ideology and reflected
a clear intention to cause hatred against the Indian State and the Tamil Nadu
government.
It may be noted that the PDK has been clandestinely
distributing CD materials in support of LTTE throughout the state; the Congress
has objected to the Election Commission. PDK president Kolathur Mani was recently
imprisoned under NSA for seditious speech. It is high time the government
banned this anti-national organization.
Though TNCC President Thangkabalu and Union Minister G K Vasan condemned the
incident, the Congress high command preferred silence so as not to embarrass
ally DMK. Hence the Prime Minister also kept quiet and the Defence Minister
remained mute. The mainstream electronic media, which repeatedly aired and
debated the inconsequential attack on a third-rate pub for more than 72 hours,
preferred silence on the attack on the army convoy. This speaks volumes about
the Medias' understanding of national security.
That this violent attack on an Army convoy
is not receiving the attention it deserves is cause for great misgiving. Yet
what else can one expect of a government and a media which is essentially
run on an NGO agenda. This agenda does not respect national soldiers and shamelessly
accepts with equanimity the medals which our soldiers returned a few months
ago in anger and frustration.
- The author is a senior journalist; he lives
in Chennai
