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Tamil Nadu Police Arrest 3K People In 52 Hours After Four Beheadings

Tamil Nadu police have arrested 3,325 criminals in a 52-hour long statewide crackdown, triggered by four beheadings reported from Dindigul and Tirunelveli districts earlier this month, the police said on Monday.

Despite arresting several people in connection with the killings, the police said such operations would be conducted in future to maintain law and order in the state.

The crackdown, called ‘Storming Operation’, started on Thursday on directions of Tamil Nadu DGP Sylendra Babu, in which 21,592 people with criminal backgrounds were questioned, of whom 3,325 were arrested, and 1,117 weapons seized from them, the police said. Of the arrested criminals, 2,526 were released based on a one-year peace bond signed by them.

“Peace bond is a judicial power with the police under the Criminal Procedure Code where we ask the offenders to sign a bond for a year promising that they will not be involved in any unlawful activities and if they break it, they will be arrested,” explained a senior police officer in Chennai. “The power for this procedure is with the deputy commissioner for every police division.”

In Chennai, the police arrested 257 people after questioning 2,439 people with criminal backgrounds. “During this operation, we also arrested high-profile criminal ‘Arcot’ Suresh, who has five murder cases pending against him,” a senior police official said, not wishing to be named.

‘Arcot’ Suresh, alias V Suresh, is a gangster whom the Chennai police arrested in 2014, but went absconding after getting out on bail. During the operation, police received a tip about his whereabouts and on Sunday, he was arrested from Chennai’s Pulianthope. Suresh, 43, is the main accused in a 2015 murder case, which happened in front of a city court in Chennai and has overall 20 pending cases against him, including five attempts to murder cases. Chennai police also arrested several other notorious criminals, including Vimal Kumar (24), S Ranjith (26), K Venkatesan (51) and S Rathinam (37), who have pending cases against them.

The recent beheadings in Tamil Nadu, suspected by police to be revenge killings, were the tipping point to conduct the unannounced operation.

On September 23, Nirmala Devi (70) was beheaded in Dindigul and a senior police official of the district said that her severed head was kept in front of the house of a deceased Dalit leader, C Pasupathi Pandian. Devi allegedly gave shelter to the suspects in the killing of Pandian in 2012, and the case is pending at the district’s trial court. Police have so far arrested eight people for Devi’s murder, the official said on the condition of anonymity.

On the same day, a textile trader, Stephen Raj (38), was beheaded by unknown assailants. His decapitated head was left at the spot where he was murdered. The police are probing the reason behind the murder. “It’s a coincidence that the two murders happened on the same day, but they are unrelated,” said the official quoted above.

In Tirunelveli district, a farmer, Sankara Subramanian (38), belonging to the Thevar caste, was murdered on September 13, and his decapitated head was found near a lake. “How they murdered him and left his head led us to conclude that this was in revenge for the murder of a Dalit man, named Manirathnam, back in 2013,” said a senior police official in Tirunelveli. “The two murders were similar,” he said. Police arrested six people, including Manithiram’s son Maharaja (20).

In two days, Subramanian’s killing saw retaliation and a gang murdered a Dalit, Mariappan (32), on September 15. His severed head was found on the same spot where Subramanian was murdered. Mariappan was accused in a murder case of 2014. Police arrested eight people in the case. “Those accused of murder and are out on bail are behind these attacks, but the law-and-order situation is back to normal now,” said the official quoted above.

Tirunelveli is heading to rural local body elections on October 6 and 9. AIADMK’s coordinator and deputy opposition leader O Panneerselvam last week urged chief minister M K Stalin to ensure peace in the district.

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