Land grabbing: Another ex-DMK minister arrested

Senior Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and former Tamil Nadu Minister K Ponmudi was on Wednesday arrested in a land grabbing case.

Ponmudi, former higher education minister, was arrested from his native Villupuram, 160 km from Chennai, police said.

He is the fourth former minister after Veerapandi S Arumugam (Salem), K N Nehru (Tiruchirappalli) and N K K P Raja (Erode) to be arrested on land grabbing charges in the crackdown launched by the Jayalalithaa Government on land grabbing.

Besides these four, several other DMK functionaries including MLAs J Anbazhagan (Chepauk) and Soundarapandian (Lalgudi) and some close associates of Union Minister M K Alagiri have been arrested by the police in the past three months, an action dubbed as political vendetta by the opposition party.

Jayalalithaa had recently announced that her government had returned over Rs 400 crore worth land to its rightful owners since it came to power three months ago.