How to get away with theft? Protest! Yes, on June 9, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) conducted a raid at Coimbatore airport to prevent the smuggling of gold and electronics, in which they caught 16 smugglers and ordered the customs officials to collect customs duties from them. However, two of the smugglers refused to pay the tax and started a dharna saying they had already paid a bribe to two senior customs officers and they brought the goods as they were promised a safe exit. Fearing that they might be caught, the two officers along with other staff, who regularly get bribes from the smugglers, pooled in money and paid Rs 25 lakh duty each on the goods brought by the suspects.
Save toddy
Protest or violation– differentiating these two is the recent headache of Tiruppur police. A few days ago, farmers staged a protest in front of the district collector’s office demanding permission to set up toddy shops in TN. As part of this, they even brought a few bottles of toddy and kept them in the centre of the protest venue. However, a reporter of a local channel took one of them and drank it while standing in the lane in front of the District Superintendent of Police’s office. On seeing this, farmers started to laud this as a support to their protest. And the police stood there in confusion, whether to charge him or not!
Family history
What does family history have to do with one’s political career? According to some DMK functionaries, everything. Following the resignations of the mayors of the Tirunelveli and Coimbatore municipal corporations, traditional DMK functionaries from both districts are appealing to the leadership to appoint mayors from ‘established party families’ to avoid such embarrassments (resignations) in future. They also emphasised that the appointees should not be loyalists of any specific ministers.
(Contributed by P Srinivasan, P Thiruselvam, S Kumaresan; compiled by Sneha Joseph)