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Is this what politics has stooped to...
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A cruel incident which sadly has been carried out by
'Political Parties' trying to set their own rule to
life and living...
'God! I couldn't even see her face one last time'
She sat on the floor, staring vacantly, her
dishevelled hair obstructing the tear-stained
face.
A man came over with documents for her to sign. She
mechanically put pen to paper. The moment she came to
know that the signatures were for Rs 200,000 as
compensation from the government, her eyes welled with
tears.
"Rs 200,000 for my daughter! God! I couldn't even see
her face one last time. Did I give birth to her for
this?" she sobbed.
Kasi Ammal teaches at a corporation school in Madras.
Comprising husband Kesava Chandran, four daughters
and a son, hers was a happy family. Till Wednesday.
Her daughters were all good at studies. The eldest, Uma
Maheswari, is a research student in microbiology in
Madras University. The second, Thripura Sundari, is
doing her post-graduation. And Hemalatha was a
graduate student in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural
university.
Was.
Like her eldest sister, she too wanted to research and
become an agricultural scientist. But Hemalatha's
ambitions were burnt to ashes on February 2 by a group
of hooligans. Everything was over in minutes.
War cries filled the air outside the courtroom when
Special Court Judge-2 V Radhakrishnan read the
verdict on the Pleasant Stay Hotel case.
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister and All-India Anna
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha was
sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a year and a
fine of Rs 1,000. So were four others, including a former
minister in her cabinet, T Selvaganapathy, now a
member of Parliament.
The AIADMK's response was violent. They blocked
traffic at many places, stopped government buses, not
only within Madras, but in other parts of Tamil Nadu
too.
In Dharmapuri, it went a step ahead. A group, allegedly
of the AIADMK, stopped a bus carrying 70 students of
the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, and set fire to
it.
The students were returning to Coimbatore after a study
tour. They were forced out of the bus through the front
door; the back door was locked. But before Hemalatha,
Gayathri and Kokila could get out, one of the mob
locked the front door from the outside.
Even as other students and teachers cried out that
there were people inside, a miscreant threw a
petrol bomb.
The whole bus burst into flames. And three young girls
were charred to death.
"We couldn't even see her face," Kesava Chandran, her
father, choked.
It was he who had left Hemalatha in the hostel three
months ago. She was planning to return this week. But
instead, her charred body came back.
"What did my daughter do? Why do they have to punish
innocent people?" Chandran asked. "She [Jayalalitha]
was not even arrested or taken to jail. If this is the
way
her men behave on hearing a court verdict, I don't know
what will happen later."
Chandran, an Indian Bank employee, came out from
work in the evening to find no vehicles on the road. He
was surprised. He had heard about the court verdict and
the violent reactions, but little did he know that a
mob
had turned its fury on his daughter.
By night, he got a message from Dharmapuri that the
college bus had met with an accident and his daughter
was in the hospital.
"I am not a member or supporter of any political party,
but I work for the welfare of my community, the
scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. I have heard of
miscreants setting fire to transport buses. But till
now
they did it only after emptying the bus. Here, even
when
they knew that some girls were inside, they did it!"
Chandran still can't believe it.
"As it was the university bus, they looked at it as the
government's. I do not know which party people did
this. Whoever it is, we are the sufferers, are we not?
We lost our daughter. It was very, very cruel. That's
all
I can say."
He continued: "My daughter wanted to be an
agricultural scientist and do research. So the country
has also lost a young scientist. Three young lives are
gone. They will not come back. What did they gain out
of this? My heart breaks whenever the image of her
smiling face appears in front of me. We could not even
see her face..."
While returning home with his daughter's body,
Chandran saw thousands of students on the streets,
protesting. "They did not belong to either the AIADMK
or DMK. They were merely angry students. The
political scene has become so dirty that I feel we need
a
change. All these people and parties should go and a
new set of leaders should come up. Only then will our
youngsters have a better future.
"If those in power do not stop such heinous acts, these
parties will disappear. If political parties are going
to
behave like this, students will rise and rise from the
ashes of these girls," he said.
Hemalatha's uncle, who had been listening to the
conversation, added: "The boy who tried to help Hema
and the other girls told me that the hooligans refused
to
listen to their pleas. If they had not locked the door,
the
girls would have escaped.
"She [Jayalalitha] says they are not AIADMK men. But
tell me who went berserk that day after hearing the
verdict? Her party workers. So it is anybody's guess
who they were... Whoever they are, the loss is ours."
By then it was time for Chandran to go to the
crematorium. To collect his daughter's ashes. As he got
up, tears rolled down.
The flow of well-wishers had not subsided when he
returned. The house was still crowded with people:
students from nearby colleges, friends of Hemalatha and
her sisters, students from Kasi Ammal's school,
Chandran's colleagues and the entire neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, the political scene in Tamil Nadu has taken
a turn for the worse. The AIADMK and DMK accuse
each other of trying to gain political mileage from the
incident. You could see posters condemning
Hemalatha's killers on the walls, obviously pasted by
the AIADMK's detractors.
"What do they think? That they will be able to get away
with this? No, the students will not let them," some in
the emotionally charged crowd fumed.
"A change is going to take place. Please write in
detail
about this gruesome incident.
Let the whole world know how our political parties
behave."
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