CHENNAI: Leaders of opposition parties on Thursday came down heavily on the DMK government over the midnight eviction of conservancy workers in Chennai. AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami said in the 79 years of independent India, no government has unleashed such repression on poor conservancy workers as the DMK government did by carrying out a high-handed eviction at midnight.
BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran termed the action “completely inhuman,” pointing out that the protest was to demand fulfilment of the DMK’s own election promise. PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss called the eviction “shocking and unforgivable,” adding, “Driving them away is cowardice, not courage.”
TVK president and actor Vijay also strongly condemned the “inhuman and high-handed” arrest of workers in the dead of night.
The DMK’s alliance partners too voiced their displeasure. CPI(M) state secretary P Shanmugam alleged that the workers were “brutally assaulted, arrested, and detained in different halls” during the police operation.
Calling it “illegal and a gross violation of human rights,” he urged the CM to take action against police personnel involved in the assault.
“Using the court order as a tool, the police arrested them at midnight. Such acts of violence to hand over contracts to a corporate company must stop,” said People’s Watch executive director Henri Tiphagne.