Police keep communal violence in check
The bandh called by Thevar outfits and supported by All India Forward Bloc hit normal life in southern districts on Wednesday.
Almost all commercial establishments remained closed and buses especially to suburban Madurai and to villages from the headquarters of the districts were not operated by the TNSTC.
Stray incidents of stone-pelting on buses and a few shops that were open were reported in Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Sivagangai and Virudhunagar districts.
The day-long bandh was announced by Thevar Samudhaya Kootamaippu, a federation of Thevar outfits including Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam, in the state to condemn the violence during the 50th Thevar jayanthi celebrations on Oct. 30 which claimed 9 lives in three different incidents in Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram district and Chinthamani in Madurai district.
While Madurai collector Anshul Mishra declared a holiday for all education institutions in the district as a precautionary measure, schools in the riot-hit neighbouring districts remained closed fearing violence. Those schools and colleges that functioned had thin strength of students.
Many autorickshaws kept off the roads and markets were also not opened. The TNSTC resorted to token operation of town buses and that too with police protection inside Madurai. When a few lawyers who saw a couple of petty shops open at Nelpettai insisted that the shopkeepers shut them, the locals started hurling stones at them because of which tension prevailed in the locality for some time. However, the situation was brought under control with police intervention.
Though a few petty shops were open in the suburbs in the morning, they were closed within a few minutes after a group threatened the shopkeepers.
In the highly caste-sensitive Usilampatti, not a single bus was operated. "The area will be prone to trouble only if buses run. If not, then you can be assured that there will not be any untoward incident," a police inspector commented.
Police said that they seized a petrol bomb from two youths near Souh Gate in Madurai. Growing suspicious about their movements, police questioned them when a bomb and a cellphone which one of them had fell down. Immediately, the youths made good their escape on their motocycle, police claimed.
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