Students’ power keeps up momentum of agitation across State

The movement has now become a crusade to secure the rights of Tamils and to protect their tradition from external threats, all thanks to the social media and the students’ united stand to avoid political colour to their protest.

The protests became intensive in Alanganallur on Wednesday as large number of people from neighbouring villages, cities like Chennai and even other states joined the protests. Following the detainment of 234 protesters at Alanganallur, there was widespread agitation after which the detainees were released in batches. However, they joined the protest in Alanganallur again. Interestingly, the protest was getting more organised by the day with proper arrangements to make announcements and distribute water and food. As time progressed, the crowd, especially women from neighbouring villages, swelled at Alanganallur and their united call was that jallikattu is conducted through Vadivasal. A woman who had been protesting from Tuesday, suffered from fits and was rushed to Madurai Periyar GH for treatment. Later, it was announced that she was Gayathri from Kallanai village near Alanganallur. In Madurai city, students brought the traffic to a standstill on Wednesday. Nearly 60 per cent of bus services was cancelled.

In a first show of strength by students in the last two decades, nearly 20,000 of them boycotted classes and took out mass processions before thronging the VOC Ground on the Avinashi Road in the heart of Coimbatore city on Wednesday. The long processions and protests on the road brought traffic to a standstill in the city. “We will not cast our vote in the coming local body polls and other elections if the government does not ban PETA. It is not enough if the ban on jallikattu is lifted,” R Savitha (20) firmly said. Bearing the scorching sun more than 2,500 girls took part in the protest. A girl student fainted in the ground and was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. The protest at VOC Ground started in a humble way with 2,000 students on Tuesday morning and gained momentum on Wednesday. In addition to the protestors occupied the entire width of highway near the LIC Junction, due to which traffic had to be diverted in a major portion of the city. Predominantly dressed in black, they raised slogans against PETA the protesters also rallied on the road on bikes. Some of them brought pairs of Kangayam bulls to the protest venue. Various cultural events like playing the parai and puli aatam were organised at the venue. Over 2,500 students took part in the protests in Pollachi town.

Moritio of Spain was among the few foreigners who had come to take part in the protest with the students in Coimbatore. “Bull fight is a popular sport in our country too and during the sport the bull gets killed. But the sport has not been banned as it is part of our culture. I saw videos of the sport (jallikattu). It is not a violent one like ours. I am surprised why jallikattu was banned. The ban should be lifted,” he said and sat with the protestors. More than 5,000 students took part in the protest at VOC Park Ground in Erode. In the afternoon they took out a procession and petitioned Collector S Prabakar to ban PETA and lift the ban on jallikattu. In Salem, tension prevailed as two of those students Boopal and Rajkumar attempted self-immolation.