SIVAGANGA: The tears welling up in their eyes are no match to the agony they are feeling, the loss they are encountering and the void they are experiencing, as this mother-brother duo breaks down whenever Ajithkumar’s name crops up. All efforts of politicos, cutting across party lines — from DMK to TVK — to console the family, are in vain.
The air is pregnant with grief and anger, as evident from the posters condemning the police department, pasted across the streets in the non-descript village of Madapuram near Thirupuvanam.
“Why should they (the police) kill him? They could have let him free after breaking his hand or leg, as that’s their so-called routine,” tells B Malathy (52), mother of Ajithkumar, to TNIE during a visit to the village on Wednesday.
Since the death of her husband Balaguru years ago, she says, it had been just the three of them — Ajithkumar, his brother B Naveenkumar and Malathy. “I can’t sleep at night without him,” she says in a quivering voice.
Meanwhile, Naveenkumar raised his doubt about the unknown IAS officer, who is said to be behind the incident. “I don’t know who this officer is, or if such an officer even exists. But whoever is behind the incident, they must be punished,” he says.
Going down the memory lane, Naveenkumar said his brother had always lived for the family. After completing Class 10, Ajithkumar undertook various odd jobs, including one at a cell phone tower, to support the family. For the last two to three months, he had been working as a temporary guard at Madapuram temple. The Rs 8,000 he earned was fully spent on the family.
Recalling his brother as naive and trusting, Naveenkumar says there we no cases against him. “Even if he had committed a crime, he should not have been treated in such a harsh manner by the police,” he says. Like most brothers, he says, they spoke less at home. “Amma won’t worry if I come home late, but she would become restless if he didn’t return home on time. She had even started looking for a match for him,” he says.
It’s not just the family, the entire village has high opinion of Ajithkumar’s family. “The woman had struggled much to raise her sons. They were just beginning to come up in life as they started selling idli/dosa batter a few years ago,” a villager says.
One of the employees of a shop in the area said Ajithkumar was not the person who would ever steal. “We tried telling this to the police personnel when they picked him up, but stopped after a while, fearing police reaction,” he says.
Stalin’s apology ‘staged drama’, says BJP chief
Chennai: BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran, in a post on X, criticised the video of Chief Minister M K Stalin offering apologies and condolences to the mother of Ajithkumar, calling it a “staged and edited drama”. Questioning the sincerity of the gesture, Nagenthran asked how merely saying “Sorry, ma” could be justified after the brutal killing of an innocent youth, especially when it is the responsibility of the CM, who has the police under his direct control. He further demanded to know whether Stalin would apologise to the families of 23 other individuals who allegedly died in police custody or as a result of police action during his tenure. ENS