DMK suspends man caught on video assaulting women shopkeepers

Two days after a video showing an altercation between a gang of men beating three women in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukkottai district went viral, the DMK man seen in the video has been suspended from the party. An announcement in the party mouthpiece Murasoli carried a disciplinary action statement from K Anbazhagan, the General Secretary of the DMK.

“P Saravanan, Thirumayam Zonal Secretary from Pudukkottai South district, has been temporarily suspended from primary membership of the party and all party posts for behaving in a manner that breaches party discipline and bringing disrepute to the party,” the statement read.

According to the police, the men had won a bid to sell coconuts near the local Bhairavar temple in Thirumayam area and had attempted to stop the women from selling coconuts at their shop.

The attack, caught on camera, showed two women standing in front of a petty shop, trying to fight the agitated men who were threatening them. With the escalating altercation, one man began to take items from the shop counter and threw them on the street while the three women at the shop attempted to stop him. The men then began to thrash the women. Following the attack, the three women - identified as Vasuki, Gowri and Rajam - were admitted to the local government hospital with injuries.

The women alleged that the men had taken Rs 20,000 kept at the shop. Speaking media persons from the 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.”

The men were booked for attempt to murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. While the others are absconding, the rival shop owner Sivaraman has been arrested by the Thirumayam police.