VILLUPURAM: It was like the scene out of an action movie. On Friday morning, two masked men on a two-wheeler chased Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK)functionaries travelling in three cars and hurled country-made bombs at them right in the midst of the busy traffic.
Miraculously, everyone escaped unhurt. Police suspect the attack to be a bid to murder a TVK functionary, who was the prime accused in the murder of a Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) functionary in 2014.
According to sources, Thirumalaivasan, the then Kandamangalam union secretary of the PMK was murdered in Villupuram in 2014. The taluk police had registered a case against eight people with TVK state youth wing joint secretary Arumugam of Kalipattu near Valavanur, who had a rivalry with the victim, as the main accused, and the trial was on in Villupuram court.
All the eight accused, including Arumugam, came to the Villupuram court for the hearing on Friday and were returning to their village in three cars. While they were on the Villupuram-Puducherry road, the masked men on started hurling the bombs on Arumugam’s car damaging the windshield.
Fearing for their lives, the TVK men asked the drivers to accelerate. But the bike-borne duo chased them and continued to hurl the bombs. At the Panampattu road junction, the duo managed to block the cars and hurled some more bombs at Arumugan’s vehicle before escaping. The windshields of all three cars, a private bus from Puducherry and a share-auto were shattered. Luckily, neither those inside the cars nor any member of the public sustained injury.
Suspecting that the attackers might come back, the TVK men went to the Kandamangalam police station in the damaged vehicles and lodged a complaint. Villupuram district superintendent of polic, K S Narendran Nayar rushed to the spot. He held inquiries with the public and the share-auto and bus drivers.
A case has been registered and special teams have been formed to find those involved in the attack.