DMK man, four others assault women shopkeepers in TN, absconding

 

The video shows two women standing in front of a petty shop, attempting to fend off the men. The main accused, Lakshmanan, his brother and three others can also be seen. Two of the men are threatening to hit the women initially. Even as the altercation escalates, one man begins to take items from the shop counter and throws them while the women attempt to stop him. It is at this point, the men begin to beat the women, egged on by other men around them.

 

While the men are now absconding, the Thirumayam police said, “The accused men had bought the bid to sell coconuts there. For the past couple of years, the women, who filed the complaint, have been running the shop there. This year, the accused men had won the bid with more money, at a cost of Rs 3 lakh. They told the women not to sell coconuts. That’s how the fight broke out.”

 

The women, identified as Vasuki, Gowri and Rajam, have been admitted to the government hospital for treatment. Speaking to media persons from hospital, Vasuki said, “DMK zonal secretary Saravanan brought his brothers Sivaraman and Kumaresan and his sons Vijayaraghavan and Lakshmanan to destroy the shop. They said the Rs 20,000 I had kept in the shop was to buy alcohol. They said they were going to end my chapter. They said they would completely destroy everything in some time and beat us. They hit me with an iron rod. There was a rod of thorns there, they picked it up and beat me.”

 

Vasuki’s father Mani, who was present at the hospital added, "The five men hit her. But six men were standing surrounding them as security. They took the money - Rs 20,000 - kept for buying stock and destroyed everything."

 

The men have been booked under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

 

This is, however, not the first time that a DMK party cadre has been caught on camera assaulting women. In September last year, S Selvakumar, a district functionary of the party from Perambalur, was suspended (and subsequently reinstated) after a video of him assaulting an employee at a beauty parlour emerged. The video showed Selvakumar brutally assaulting and kicking the woman even as other women employees try to fight him off. The same month had witnessed a DMK man and his friend arrested in Tiruvannamalai for attacking and injuring the owner of a cell phone shop over an argument about the shop’s services.

 

In August last year, a few DMK men visited a biryani shop in Chennai during the hospitalisation of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and assaulted the employees in the shop demanding free food. As a consequence, the party had taken disciplinary action against the persons involved in the incident.