Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and former Chennai mayor, M K Stalin, was on Wednesday night arrested for 'trespassing' into the Queen Mary's College campus, police said.
Son of DMK president and former chief minister M Karunanidhi, Stalin was picked up at 2330 IST from his Chennai residence and produced before a magistrate who remanded him to 15 days' custody. He has been lodged in the Cuddalore jail.
Stalin had gone to the QMC campus to express solidarity with the women students, who were protesting against the Tamil Nadu government's decision to demolish the college and construct a secretariat complex.
The police had reportedly warned Stalin that outsiders were not permitted to enter the premises.
He was arrested on a complaint by the newly appointed principal P T Rajalakshmi. She had been appointed to the post by the state's higher education department on Sunday April 6. The college is a government-run institution.
He has been remanded to judicial custody, and has been housed in the Central Prison at Cuddalore, 200km from Chennai.
The police forced their way into Stalin's Velacherry residence, even as party cadres sought to ward them off.
Constables jumped the locked gate and broke it open to allow their colleagues in. They also resorted to lathi-charge when some over-zealous cadres tried to stall the vehicle carrying Stalin after the arrest.
Along with Stalin, five other party MLAs -- former Minister
K Ponmudi, Hussain, Bharani Kumar, Velu and J Anbazhagan -- have also been arrested, the police said. They are said to have accompanied Stalin when he visited the college.
When produced before the magistrate, Stalin's lawyers referred to procedural lapses, defying clear-cut Supreme Court directions.
They said, Stalin had not been given the reason for is arrest, nor was there any need to arrest him in such haste in the night given his public standing.
Stalin later claimed that even the FIR had not been prepared in time, and his counsel had recorded it before the magistrate, with corroborative evidence.
Stalin was then denied accommodation at the Central Prison, Chennai, when taken there past midnight. The authorities told his police escort that there was no space in the prison for accommodating a lone prisoner.
Following this Stalin was taken in a police van to Cuddalore and housed there till Thursday morning.
Politically, Stalin's arrest is seen as a trial balloon ahead of a possible detention of DMK president and former chief minister M Karunanidhi for a second time in as many years.
DMK cadres took to the streets protesting the arrest. Party MLAs and MPs courted arrest in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.
Stalin's arrest came hours after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa told the assembly about a new case against Karunanidhi.
Replying to the budget debate on the demand of grants for the Home Ministry under her care, Jayalalithaa said the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption would investigate former Karnataka DGP Dinakar's published charge of money changing hands in the 'Rajkumar abduction episode'.
Jayalalitha said the DVAC would probe how much money was passed on to brigand Veerappan for Rajakumar's freedom through Karunanidhi, who was then in office, and how much of it Karunanidhi had retained.
There are clear indications that Karunanidhi may be detained a second time and Stalin's arrest was aimed at gauging the public mood and the DMK cadre-sentiments ahead.
The AIADMK also hopes for Stalin to gain primacy in DMK's internal politics, where the Karunanidhi leadership is seen as favouring Stalin's older brother M K Azhagiri at one level, and moving closer to MDMK General Secretary Vaiko, at another.
In fact, Karunanidhi has chosen to address a party rally at Vellore, where Vaiko is detained under POTA, and hopes to call on him at the local prison, where he is housed.
"The idea is to help deepen the internal divide within the DMK, and at the same time, keep the party alive and kicking, when it can do with some re-energising," says an AIADMK leader.
There is also a third reason for the sudden arrest. JACTO-GEO, the apex body of Tamil Nadu Government employees and teachers organisations, has called for a token protest strike across the State on Thursday, defying the Essential Services Maintenance Act, to press their various demands.
Stalin's arrest would divert at least some media focus away from the agitation, and DMK cadres would be staging separate protest demonstrations, thus diluting the JACTO-GEO agitation to an extent.
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