While the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) is attempting to use Dalit youth Ilavarasan’s tragic death following a failed inter-caste love marriage with a Vanniyar girl, N Divya, as a political rallying point, family members of Ilavarasan appear to be resenting it. On Tuesday, Ilavarasan’s elder brother E Balaji angrily confronted the VCK general secretary Sinthanai Selvan for allegedly trying to endorse the police theory that Ilavarasan had committed suicide.
A couple of days ago Selvan was quoted by the visual media as saying that there was no need to perform a second postmortem on Ilavarasan’s body that has been preserved at the Government Dharmapuri Medical College Hospital (GDMCH) mortuary.
“Who are you to say there is no need for a second autopsy,” asked Balaji when Selvan met him at the GDMCH. He also took on Selvan for claiming that Ilavarasan had slit his hand with a knife, a few days before he was found dead near the railway track. “Why are you spreading such false propaganda? My brother never did anything like that,” he said.
Meanwhile, a statement issued on a VCK letterhead, raised questions on the probe into Ilavarasan’s death. While earlier the party had sought to blame the PMK for the violence against Dalits and Ilavarasan’s death, the statement said the party did not want to blame any individuals for the incident. Instead, it chose to describe Ilavarasan’s death as the outcome of “honour crime.”