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Maran, Baalu ought to be sacked: Jaya

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, in a ten-page statement in question-and-answer format, has sought to answer the issues raised by the arrest of her predecessor M Karunanidhi and two Union ministers, Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu.

"If the Union Minister Murasoli Maran's behaviour was 'uncouth', that of his colleague T R Baalu was not befitting the status of Union minister. Assaulting policemen during the discharge of their duty is a cognizable offence, and the police have a legal right to arrest such a person without warrant," she has said in the statement.

"Following this sort of behaviour, sufficient grounds exist for both these Union ministers being dismissed on the basis of a complaint from the affected policemen," she claims.

The statement, strongly worded in places, is seen as an open reply to the directives issued last week to the state government by the Union.

Coupled with the appointment of a judicial inquiry headed by retired Madras high court judge A Raman, the statement seeks to deflect the impact of the directives, which have come to be seen as a possible first step towards the imposition of President's rule in the State.

Jayalalithaa has dealt extensively with the timing of Karunanidhi's arrest. "The Police Manual Rules, filed under the Indian Police Act, clearly stipulate that a political leader with a mass following has necessarily to be arrested only after midnight, so as to prevent untoward public incidents and law-and-order problems from supporters and assorted hooligans," she points out.

Why, then, had the Karunanidhi government arrested her in the day on corruption charges? Jayalalithaa has the answer. "He had no other alternative. The laws of the land are very clear that no woman should be arrested and kept in police custody between 6pm and 6am."

The chief minister has also addressed the question of arresting Karunanidhi without warrant. "The law is very clear on this," she says. "No arrest warrant or search warrant is required when the police is dealing with a cognizable offence under Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code. And Karunanidhi, who has been chief minister four times, each time holding the Home portfolio, is well aware of this."

The statement, bereft of any honorifics for Karunanidhi or the two ministers, also claims that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president was "not manhandled at any stage. If he had been, he would not have come out of his bedroom smiling, and beaming at everyone. Today, he claims that he suffers from shoulder pains because he was manhandled by the police, and that he could not even lift his hand to write a letter to the Chief Secretary while in jail."

In this context, the statement refers to earlier interviews by Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, referring to his shoulder pains even during the assembly election. "Karunanidhi was in good health when interned in jail. He was in good health when discharged from jail," says Jayalalithaa. "Well enough he was to drive almost directly to the party office and address an hour-long press conference. Two days later, he gets himself admitted in hospital," she remarks. "The people are not gullible to believe all these theatrics."

The chief minister's statement also raises the question of Karunanidhi's decision to boycott the Justice Raman Commission. "The commission has been appointed to arrive at the truth, in view of the conflicting versions of what happened at the time of Karunanidhi's arrest," it says. "Karunanidhi has always been a man of two faces" in such situations, it remarks.

"If Karunanidhi decides to co-operate with this commission, it will become binding on Sun TV to produce all their raw footage of the incident, just as the police video would be submitted. Then the truth will come out that Sun TV had cleverly managed to evoke public sympathy through selective editing and clever manipulation of visuals, to create a law and order problem in the State, and to divert the attention of the people," the statement says.

Otherwise, Jayalalithaa's statement mostly repeats the city police's version of the events of June 30, saying that it was all hunky-dory until Murasoli Maran arrived at Karunanidhi's Oliver Road residence.

It reiterates how Maran stopped the policemen from discharging their duties through intimidation and how he had hit a policeman when he had to be finally bundled out.

It makes similar charges against Baalu, and recounts how he and Maran had together gate-crashed the office of the crime branch, criminal investigation department, where Karunanidhi had been taken after his arrest.

Jayalalithaa's lengthy statement also denies any gag on the press in the light of Sun TV's Villupuram reporter G Suresh's arrest on charges of attempt to murder an official of the state Civil Supplies Corporation.

Karunanidhi's Arrest: The Complete Coverage

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