Salem (TN) Nov 11 AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday alleged that Law and Order in Tamil Nadu suffered a complete breakdown and claimed that criminals no longer have any fear of the police.
To support his claim, he cited 11 murders alleged to have occurred in the state on Diwali festival day alone.
Addressing the media here, the former chief minister said, “The government is sleeping like Kumbhakarna while murders are happening everywhere across the state,” Palaniswami said, adding that the administration is functioning purely on “reels” rather than implementing real schemes.
Palaniswami cited a recent brutal daylight murder that allegedly occurred near Chennai’s Greenways Road. The area is a high-security VIP zone housing the residences of state ministers, high court judges, and where Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay recently relocated. “If there is no protection for people in an area where judges and ministers live, one can only imagine the situation in other parts of the state,” he said.
He further pointed to the two recent incidents, in one of which a police inspector was allegedly attacked by rowdies, while in another incident a Special Sub-Inspector (SSI) was hacked to death.
Taking a dig at the police’s inefficiency, Palaniswami referred to the unresolved case of a minor girl who has been missing from her home in a village near Gingee in Villupuram district for over a month. “It is an agonising situation. A young girl has been missing for over 30 days, and the police are yet to find her,” he noted, stressing that women, children, and the general public are unsafe in the state.
The AIADMK leader attributed the spike in murders, robberies, and sexual assaults to the unchecked availability of drugs, particularly ganja, which he claimed is being sold freely from villages to cities. He also alleged the open sale of illegal single-digit lotteries in places like Edappadi.
Palaniswami strongly condemned the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board’s recent move to seal and disconnect power to 467 factories over alleged rule violations. He said the abrupt action has cost 1.5 lakh workers their livelihoods. Instead of shutting them down instantly, the government should have given the units three to four months to rectify minor discrepancies, he suggested, warning that such a hostile approach drives away investments to neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh.
Palaniswami also accused ruling party MLAs of severe misconduct. He cited an incident where an MLA allegedly assaulted a member of the public who came to air his grievance, and another instance where a legislator allegedly sent an obscene message to a female District Collector.
He accused the state government of inaction despite widespread criticism from leaders of alliance parties.
Hitting out at the government over systemic corruption, the former chief minister claimed that bribes are now being demanded openly. He alleged that citizens are complaining that officials demand even higher bribes when the chief minister’s name is mentioned, pointing to recent Diwali-time anti-corruption raids across municipal and registration offices that recovered lakhs of unaccounted cash.
On the agricultural front, Palaniswami slammed the state government for failing to secure the Supreme Court-mandated 177.25 TMC of Cauvery water from Karnataka.
He stated that this failure has severely damaged the Kuruvai and Samba crops in the Delta districts, directly leading to a drop in agricultural production and a subsequent rise in the prices of essential commodities. He also demanded that the chief minister forcefully respond to Karnataka’s assertions about building the Mekedatu dam without seeking permission from other riparian states like Tamil Nadu.
(PTI News)
