VILLUPURAM:Dwelling into the causes that led to the rift between two castes and the ensuing riots near Kallakuruchi on Friday, the Dalits said their erstwhile friends attacked them during the Mariamman temple car procession, while their so-called sworn enemies, the Vanniyars, didn’t have any strong reason why they didn’t want the procession on a particular road.
After the riots, police came to the Seshasamudram village early Sunday morning and arrested 75 people, all Vanniyars, including women and juveniles in connection with the attack on Dalit the previous night. Most of the houses were empty, their doors kept opened.
Since the police began arresting the women, no one except some elderly persons, a pregnant woman and some children, were in the village. They also hid themselves in the houses, whenever they saw any one on the streets that looked like a ghost town.
The residents had left the area and gone to stay in their relatives’ houses or friends’ house in the nearby villages, and they were still gripped by fear ever since about 500-strong mob of Vanniyars gathered near the colony bus-stop, and then entered the colony by throwing stones and petrol bombs to reach the Mariamman temple, from where the temple car procession was to begin on Sunday.
Then they hurled petrol bombs at the car, which caught fire and spread to nearby houses. In the meantime, another mob entered the colony area and set fire to some houses there. Also, the group attacked people, why tried to stop them, said Subramani, a Vanniyar, who funded the building of the temple car and whose relatives’ houses were burned down.
He said, “People from my community and Dalits were friends and worked together in farmlands. Once the row over the car procession broke out a month ago, they stopped talking to us.”
He claimed that `30,000 in cash and two sovereigns of gold jewels in Saravanan’s house, `20,000 in Munian’s house, both brothers, who are labourers were lost in the fire.”
Certificates of siblings Surrendira, a software engineer and Mageswari, a nursing student, were burnt to ashes, he said.
“The Dalits entered the village, saying not even a tumbler should be left, and torched them. They killed four goats tethered outside the house, and set fire to four motorcycles belonging to policemen, who were already there for protection,” said Veerasamy, a witness to the riot.
Seventy-five-year-old Govindhan, who was sitting in front of his house because he couldn’t move, said he did not want the Dalits car taken out on a common pathway. His wife refused to talk to this correspondent and went away into the house in a huff.