100 days after Mugilan went missing, wife alleges harassment by CB-CID

Shanmugam Thangasamy alias Mugilan (52) vanished on the night of February 15 from Egmore railway station leaving no clues about his whereabouts. Earlier that day, he had addressed a press meet in the city, in which he accused two senior police officers of orchestrating the police firing in Thoothukudi on the 100th day of the anti-Sterlite protest on May 22 last year, in which 13 people were killed.

Talking to DT Next, Mugilan’s wife Poongodi indicated that the sleuths from CB-CID, which is probing the missing case of Mugilan, have been harassing her well-wishers.

“CB-CID has been inquiring my friends and well-wishers, which has become a kind of harassment. After conducting an inquiry in Coimbatore, they were asked to reach Chennai for further inquiry,” Poongodi said.

They have already told the officers whatever they were aware of, she said, questioning the need for questioning them repeatedly. “The police are harassing them so that they would stop helping us, and also to make sure that Mugilan would not indulge in activism once he comes back,” she alleged, adding that the police were conducting inquiry even with the people who were in touch with her over phone.

“At the same time, the police seem to have ignored certain people whom we suspect, like Sterlite officials, illegal beach sand miners and river sand miners. The police have been telling that they don’t have evidence to inquire them but keeps questioning our well-wishers,” Poongodi added.

Police sources, however, said they believed Mugilan’s disappearance had nothing to do with his activism. “It looks like something linked to his personal life. That was why the police have been probing more about his friends and family,” sources said.

Mugilan has been a part of agitations that are linked to environmental protection, including protests against Sterlite, beach sand mining and the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.