A 2010 news report and video clip showing gruesome footage of a dying policeman crying for help, while DMK ministers watched on, doing absolutely nothing is making the rounds again on Twitter, more than 12 years later.
Netizens are expressing shock at extremely disturbing footage from Tamil Nadu, involving a dying policeman in January 2010. The policeman who was lying on the road, critically injured, profusely bleeding and crying out for help, was not offered assistance by two DMK ministers and their convoys which included policemen and an IAS officer.
Bystanders reported that they chose to do absolutely nothing for a while. The IAS officer reacted a little too late, calling for an ambulance but the policeman died of his severe injuries, not having received timely medical help.
This incident was widely reported at the time (2010) and attracted a nation wide outpouring of emotions at the DMK government in power, expressing outrage and disgust.
Netizens are once again expressing their emotions and reminding the people of TN, of the behaviour and apathy that one expect from the DMK.
Going 12 years break. Honorable Minister watches a cop dying who was brutally assaulted.
The minister who said Annamalai can not come to cuddalore.
People forgot this and allowed vidiyal pic.twitter.com/okTJzfC3tu— தங்கபுஷ்பம் (@thangapushpam03) October 28, 2022
Here are the details of the incident, as reported in Jan. 2010.
A case of shocking indifference and negligence came to light on January 8, 2010 when a sub-inspector of police in Tirunelveli district of southern Tamil Nadu bled to death after gangsters cut off his legs.
His cry for help went in vain even after Tamil Nadu DMK Government’s Health Minister MRK Paneerselvam and Youth and Sports Development Minister T P M Mohideen Khan, travelling in a convoy, saw the bleeding policeman, R Vetrivel, crying out for help.
The convoy came to a halt but neither of the ministers stepped out of their cars. The ministers’ convoy stopped but chose not to provide the desperately needed assistance, until it was too late. Bureaucrats were present as part of the ministers convoy – a Collector and a Health Secretary. The Collector, M Jayaraman, got out of his car after dithering for eight minutes. Nobody offered to take the wounded sub inspector to hospital. Finally, the Collector phoned for an ambulance, which arrived too late. It was reported by bystanders, that the policeman was placed in one of the cars (the ministers still didn’t offer theirs) but he died en route to the hospital.
The unfortunate policeman, R. Vetrivel was a member of the Special Task Force that gunned down the forest brigand Veerappan in 2004. He lay in a pool of blood with his leg severed and begged for help after the attack at Alwarkuruchi, shortly before the ministerial convoy was to pass by. The policeman who died en-route to the hospital, was attacked with home-made bombs and his legs were brutally hacked by gangsters. It was later reported that it was a sad case of mistaken identity.
The video was shot by a free lance cameraperson covering the ministers’ visit.
The nationwide outrage over the incident back in 2010 seems to have had little effect on the two DMK minsiters, accused of negligence and lack of sympathy, as they watched a policeman bleed to death.
The ministers opted to stay away from the policeman’s last rites, which were held at his hometown of Sankaran Kovil. A DSP was deputed to make an appearence for Sub Inspector Vetrivel’s last rites and lay a wreath on his body. R. Vetrival left behind, a wife and two children.
Many reader reactions to the shocking incident from the time (2010) sound similar to the outrage being expressed now by citizens, after the video has re-surfaced on Twitter.
Here are reader comments from 2010:
“They should be stripped off their portfolio’s, and their MLA seat should be taken away.They should be barred from any elections and put into jail. Coz its criminal of what they did in a democracy. They are for the people and not people for them. If they don’t understand democracy they have no right to be in those posts.”
“Ministers and the cop standing had cars to transport him to hospitals. They should be prosecuted for causing death with negligence.”
TPM Mohideen Khan was elected four times from Palayankottain constituency holding on to his MLA seat from 2001 to 2021.
MRK Panneerselvam is today an elected MLA from Kurinjipadi constituency and is also the Tamil Nadu Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
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