Indu Makkal Katchi Arjun Sampath and several cadres of the party were arrested by the Tamil Nadu police for trying to hold an election rally in Kumbakonam on February 10, 2021.
Indu Makkal Katchi’s ‘Aanmeega Arasiyal’ (spiritual politics) election campaign was to be held on February 10 at the Ayyampettai area in Thanjavur district.
The founder head of IMK, Arjun Sampath, was on his way to Thanjavur from Coimbatore to attend the meeting. The police arrested Arjun Sampath and IMK cadres in the Pettavaithalai police station limits near the Trichy-Karur border stating that permission has not been granted to conduct the meeting and that they were arresting him and his cadres as a precautionary measure. They were housed at a private wedding hall.
Speaking to The Commune, IMK head Arjun Sampath said “For the past few days, IMK has been organizing meetings where we have been talking about how Tamil Nadu is becoming an Islamic State and a Taliban hotspot. The Thanjavur-Kumbakonam earlier used to be dotted with temples and other symbols of Tamil culture, Hindu culture. Now this entire area has been Islamized with mosques all around. They are encroaching our temples and temple lands. Already Ramalingam who hailed from Thirubuvanam was brutally murdered by Islamists for resisting conversions. It is in light of this that we are holding public meetings in all 234 constituencies.”
The IMK leader also said that the police were dillydallying about giving permission to their rally for the past one week. They had asked them to not allow Vellore Ibrahim, a pro-CAA Muslim activist and a BJP sympathizer, to speak in their rally. Then they had asked them to just hold ‘street corner’ meeting. The IMK cadres is said to have agreed to all the conditions laid down. However, the police denied permission for the IMK to hold rallies in the region and had arrested all the IMK cadres of the region. Periyakovil Karthi, the youth wing secretary of the IMK was arrested on the morning of February 10.
Hundreds of IMK cadres later staged a sit-in protest in Ayyampettai at 6 PM condemning the arrest and demanding the release of Arjun Sampath and other cadres.
All cadres along with Arjun Sampath were released at around 11 PM.
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