In a day of fast political developments in Tamil Nadu, H Raja, national secretary of the BJP and Tamilissai Sounderarajan, the State party president were arrested along with hundreds of workers for trying to stage a demonstration in Chennai to protest against the indifference of the police towards the unabated increase in killings of Hindu activists in the State.
Police in Chennai had denied permission to a demonstration proposed to be staged by activists of Hindu Munnai (an umbrella organisation of all Hindu social and spiritual entities in Tamil Nadu) and BJP on Wednesday to condemn the recent killings of various Hindu social activists in the State, allegedly by jehadis. The day also saw Rama Gopalan, a popular Hindu spiritual leader sending a SOS message to the Union Government saying Hindus are not safe in the State.
Raja, who addressed the media before being whisked away by the police, described Tamil Nadu Police as anti-Hindu. later speaking to The Pioneer, the BJP national secretary said the police had given permission to Muslims to stage a demonstration at the city centre while refusing permission to Hindu activists to hold an agitation at a place more than ten km away. “This shows that Tamil Nadu Police is afraid of the Islamists,” he said.
“Jainulabdeen, founder of Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamat has issued a warning to the police reminding them that there are only 20,000 policemen in the State whereas his organisation had 50 lakh activists ready to do anything. This speech has been aired many times by the news channels,” said Raja.
Wednesday’s agitation in Chennai was to protest the murders of Sasikumar, a Hindu Munnani leader at Coimbatore last Friday and Suri, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader at Hossur early last week. The murders had shocked the people of western Tamil Nadu which erupted into bandhs and hartals in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode districts.
The unabated violence and attacks against Hindu leaders prompted the octogenarian Rama Gopalan, a venerated spiritual and social leader of Tamil Nadu to send a “SOS” message to union home minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday. Ram Gopalan requested the Union Home Minister to entrust the National Investigation Agency the probe into the murders of all Hindu activists in Tamil Nadu.