Madan Ravichandran, the News Head of Channel Vision has come out with his second video as part of his #MadanDiary series.
This video is set to rattle the high echelons of the party and the pillars of Arivalayam as an unidentified man discloses about the DMK indulging in illegal deer hunting and the mafia behind it.
On July 12, Thiruporur DMK MLA Idhayavarman was caught for brandishing a gun in broad day light and firing multiple rounds in the middle of a road in which one of the bullet hit a passer-by. He had fired at the car of a real estate agent Kumar while travelling along the East Coast Road owing to a property dispute.
Many had reported that Kumar had encroached on a temple land to lay a path to reach his plot, to which the members of the village had objected. It was said that Idhayavarman was ‘helping the Hindus’ to get back the temple land. It was also said that it was because Kumar and his men had attacked Idhayavarman with sickles that the latter took the gun and fired. Though the mainstream Tamil news channels conducted a debate on this issue, it was steered in such a way that what Idhayavarman did was justified, Madan said. Madan says that had it been an MLA belonging to any other party these channels with huge financial, technical and human resources would have resorted to their ‘investigative journalism’ to come out with the minute details. This showed their biasedness and inclination towards the DMK, he alleges.
Madan took interest in the case as it involved a DMK MLA and conducted his own investigation which has exposes shocking details.
To add weight to his case, he has interviewed a villager belonging to the Thiruporur region who spells out the back story of the DMK MLA and the guns. The man’s identity has been withheld after his consent. “If these people can go to any extent to bring down me, think of this poor man from a village and what they might do to him for revealing these details”, Madan says. He says that he is willing to submit all documents and let the man testify before a court of law if at all legal proceedings are initiated against him for revealing the details.
Madan in his interview with the villager asks in the beginning if his identity can be revealed. The man requests not to as he says that he is a daily wage labourer and doesn’t have the strength to take such powerful men.
The villager reveals that there exists an illegal deer hunting mafia in which the DMK MLA Idhayavarman is involved. “Idhayavarman using gun on men is only recent news but before this he used them for hunting deer”, the villager says. He adds that many VIPs come for deer hunting in the surrounding regions of his village. “The hunted deer and its meat are given to important party men. MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin loves deer meat. Many in my village also say that” the villager says. He notes that the deer count in the region has reduced due to this illegal deer hunting.
Madan intervenes to ask if whether the information that he is revealing are hearsay or has he seen the DMK MLA Idhayavarman hunting deer for real. The villager notes that he has infact seen it for himself sometime back when he was doing the rounds in his farm. He says he was strolling in his farm one night, when he had seen Idhayavarman shoot a deer which was later taken by the DMK MLA and his men in a car to be taken elsewhere.
Madan asks that the gun that was fired at Kumar was a pistol while for hunting bigger rifles are used. “They hunt with the bigger rifles but it seems that he has smaller pistols too”, the villager says.
Incidentally, the police had seized a small pistol and also a bigger rifle when they arrested Idhayavarman and his father Lakshmipathy.
At a later point in the video, Madan asks the man how is Idhayavarman able to hunt deer and give to it to the party leaders like Udhayanidhi Stalin as he claims, given that there are people like forest rangers, journalists or even people in the village who might come to know of it. The man says that the hunting happens in wee hours when everybody is asleep. “Everybody in the region knows that Idhayavarman is the man who hunts. He has been interesting in hunting since he was young. It is his area. If you ask anybody, they will tell you about Idhayavarman.”, the villager notes.
Madan asks about the background of Idhayavarman and how such a person in the party has guns with him and whether he has any affluence. The villager notes that the father of Idhayavarman was a chairman of the village and his grandfather, a munsif.
He also says that Idhayavarman’s father had written and handed over a Vanniyar community’s marriage hall built by members of the community out of their savings. Later the family is said to have used their money and muscle power and demolished the hall using a JCB and sold off the age old timbers and stone pillars used to build the hall for a good price. It is to be noted that Idhayavarman belongs to the Vanniyar community.
Madan interjects to say “It is said that Idhayavarman is a devotee of Lord Murugan and that he had shot at Kumar who had encroached a temple land and that Idhayavarman was ‘helping the Hindus’ to get back the temple land. What do you say of this?” to which the villager replies “Let him be a Hindu and a Murugan devotee. But it is he who has struck several land deals with Kumar earlier. He has even got money from Kumar for election expenses.” The villager says that Kumar is also from the Vanniyar community.
Towards the end of the interview with the villager, Madan double-checks whether if he is revealing all these being conscious given that people might accuse him not being in his senses. The villager ratifies that he is in his full senses and even has supporting evidences to back his claims.
Madan says that both he and the villager are ready to face legal consequences if they are accused of spreading false information.
Here is the video.