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Nedumaran arrested for defying ban orders

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Tamil Nationalist Movement leader Pazha Nedumaran, who was recently in the news for arranging freedom for Kannada thespian Rajakumar from brigand Veerappan's clutches, was arrested by the Madras police for defying prohibitory orders.

Nedumaran and members of a pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam group were protesting against the deportation of Eelavendan, an LTTE-sympathetic Sri Lankan Tamil leader who had been residing in Madras for nearly two decades.

Nedumaran and the rest, totalling about 100, were detained as they approached the Shastri Bhavan headquarters of most central government offices in the city, where the Regional Passport Office is also located.

Talking to newsmen before being whisked away, Neduamaran charged the city police with going back on its oral promise of letting the protest take place, as planned today. He also found fault with Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, for not intervening to clear the protest march and agitation.

Nedumaran charged Regional Passport Officer Aashish Bengre with bias against Tamils, claiming it to be the cause for Eelavendan's deportation. According to him, the Union home ministry had annulled Bhengre's decision to deport Eelavendan even six months back.

Nedumaran's protest assumes significance in the light of the pan-Tamil voice that he has come to represent in the light of the Rajakumar abduction and freedom.

If in the normal course such an agitation might have been overlooked by the authorities, it was not to be this time. The persona of Nedumaran in the light of the Rajakumar abduction, made the difference. So did the pan-Tamil cause, to which the DMK rulers of the state are known to be sympathetic at one time, but would not like to be seen as such, after the kidnap drama, also involving pro-LTTE militant groups.

If the upcoming assembly polls have made the difference for the DMK leadership, so has the attendant pan-Tamil militant issue. The ruling party has been under attack for being sympathetic towards pan-Tamil militant groups, including the LTTE, which has been charged with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination.

With memories of the assassination still fresh in the voter's minds, and the Opposition Congress and the local AIADMK rival raising the pan-Tamil militant issue repeatedly in Parliament in the past fortnight, the state government did not want to be caught on the wrong foot this time. More recently, the AIADMK members raised the issue of a 'pan-Tamil' website in the Lok Sabha on Friday, blaming it on the state government's connivance. The Centre's response to it was also not all that encouraging, with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan passing the buck on to the state government.

Even on an earlier occasion, when the LTTE-related pan-Tamil issue was raised in the Lok Sabha last fortnight, Home Minister L K Advani defended the state government, but fell short of declining the Opposition demand for the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government.

Hence, the extra-cautious decision not to allow Nedumaran's rally and protest, it is learnt.

ALSO SEE:

'I am helpless. After all, I am anti-national'
'I am not protecting Veerappan'

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