After meeting those imprisoned in Salem Central Jail in connection with the Dharmapuri dalit colony arson case, PMK state president G K Mani on Wednesday said that many of them, including 20 students who were jailed, were innocent.
Mani and a few of his party colleagues had a 30-minute meeting with the inmates. Emerging from the prison, Mani said that he was told that several of the men facing charges had gone to pay condolences to Nagaraj, the father of the Vanniyar community girl who married a dalit boy following which he committed suicide.
“A man on a visit to his native village from Singapore is also among those arrested. Out of the 142 arrested, 22 are students. Six of them are in Salem Central Jail and 16 are in the sub-jail in Sankagiri,” the PMK state president said.
He demanded a thorough and fair probe to bring the real instigators and perpetrators of the attack to book. He said the innocent should be released at the earliest. The arrests had been made in haste without proper preliminary investigations, he added.
Many of the youths arrested were engineering students. Their bail plea had been rejected on technical grounds and fresh petitions were being filed. In the case of others, non-bailable charges in the First Information Report was blocking their release on bail, said PMK party men.
PMK party men distributed snacks, dhotis and towels to the prisoners.