M.K.Azhagiri son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanithi in the center.
Staunch Azhagiri loyalists burnt copies of the Dinakaran News paper.
Law in the Hands of Political Parties in Tamil Nadu.
Three employees of the Tamil daily Dinakaran were killed when supporters of M K Azhagiri, the Madurai based son of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi, hurled petrol bombs and set fire to the newspaper office of Dinakaran at Uthangudi in suburban Madurai today. The loss to the newspaper office was estimated to be Rs 1 crore. The attack was launched in broad daylight in the presence of policemen.
The newspaper had published an opinion poll on 9-5-2007 which stated that M K Stalin, Local Adinistration Minister and younger son of the Chief Minister, was the popular choice [70 percent] to succeed Karunanidhi.
Irked by the paper’s poll which placed Azhagiri [ 2 percent]at the bottom of the table along with Karun-anidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi [2 percent] , Mayor Thenmozhi, a staunch Azhagiri loyalist, staged a protest in front of the daily’s office and burnt copies of the newspaper. A gang with ‘Attack’ Pandian at the helm set fire to three staff vehicles parked near the entrance. They also threw six petrol bombs into the office which triggered off the fire.
Engineers Gopinathan (25) of Keelakarai and Vinoth Kumar (23) of Duraiswamy Nagar in the City and Muthuramalingam (40), a security personnel, died due to suffocation, since they were locked up by the attackers in the computer console room. While Gopinathan and Muthuramalingam died on the spot, Vinoth Kumar died at a nearby private hospital.
In the city, Azhagiri loyalists were in a state of frenzy. They damaged seven buses and burnt copies of Dinakaran. Similar incidents were reported from several places of the city .
Despite the presence of the police, the culprits, who came in motorcycles? And a car pelted stones damaging window panes. Even as the employees were rushing out, the attackers hurled petrol bombs. The office was gutted in the attack that lasted atleast 20 minutes.
The staff of Dinakaran, Sun TV and Tamil Murasu blocked traffic on National High way for hours demanding the arrest of Azhagiri holding him responsible for the incident. The police registered a case and arrested two persons Pandi and Batcha.
Sun TV network CMD Kalanidhi Maran who reached the city, called it on attack on “the freedom of the Press” and vowed to “till we get justice”.
Three persons were killed when supporters of M.K. Alagiri, Son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanithi set ablaze the office of Tamil Daily Dinakaran and the Sun TV Net work.
