Recounting Political murders in state

Tamil Nadu is no stranger to political violence, but the recent murder of former Tirunelveli mayor Uma Maheswari of the DMK has refreshed public memory about its ‘bloody’ political history. Uma Maheswari, if the claims of the State police after initial investigation are to go by, was a victim of the cut-throat political competition that has claimed many lives, including prominent ones, over the years. While it would be for the State CB-CID to unravel and prove the motive of the triple murder that shook Tirunelveli, the incident has added one more name to the list of politicians, which includes former ministers, murdered due to intra-party or business rivalry in the recent decades.

The sheer number of murder cases involving the two Dravidian parties does not make the other parties virtuous by the standards of contemporary politics. Parties like PMK, VCK and a good number of fledgeling parties have a fair share of cases, if not murder, at least attempt to murder and assault cases. An example is S Srinivasan, brother of PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss, who was an accused in the murder of Muruganandam, driver of present law minister CVe Shanmugam. The attackers were targeting Shanmugam, who had even accused Ramadoss and family of trying to murder him.

A little over a decade ago, the murder of another elected representative of a Corporation disturbed peace in State politics for a while, with the murderers being associated with the DMK. The victim was councillor Leelavathi of CPI(M). After being introduced to Marxism by her husband Kuppusamy, Leelavathi became a political activist and was elected a ward councillor of Madurai Corporation. Leelavathi was murdered when she was barely 40 for fighting for the civic rights of the people of her ward against the wishes of a handful of local DMK functionaries in April 1997. Most of the accused were associated with the DMK. This included Marudu, brother of DMK functionary Essar Gopi, a supporter of Karunanidhi’s elder son MK Alagiri. Enmity existed between the victim and accused no 2, Annadurai, since the 1996 local body election in which Leelavathi defeated his wife Valli, who had represented the DMK in ward 59 of Madurai Corporation.

Though Leelavathi was not a prominent leader, the then ruling DMK and CPI(M) had locked horns over the councillor’s murder for quite some time. So much so that a decade later, the then CPI(M) State secretary N Varadarajan wrote to DMK president and the then chief minister M Karunanidhi, objecting to the release of a few convicts in the case during the birth anniversary celebrations of DMK founder CN Annadurai in the 2006-2011 DMK regime. The government had the last laugh. At least two convicts were set free after serving seven years in prison but not without disturbing the ties between the two parties.

Though assaults were a regular occurrence in State politics, it was not till 2003 that the State witnessed the murder of a prominent political leader, again in Madurai. Former DMK minister Tha Kiruttinan, better known as Tha Ki, was hacked to death during his morning walk at KK Nagar in the temple town in May 2003. Two-time MP from Sivaganga, Tha Ki was elected to TN Assembly in 1996, and served as the highways minister. He was arrested along with party chief Karunanidhi in connection with the alleged scam in building flyovers in Chennai. A strong supporter of Stalin during the 1990 and early 2000s, Kiruttinan worked as hard for Stalin on the field as planting supporter Velusamy for Madurai district secretary during Alagiri’s heyday.

The dark past of Tamil Nadu politics would be incomplete without a mention of Tha Ki murder case, for it saw the DMK patriarch’s son Alagiri booked as prime accused during the then AIADMK regime. Kiruttinan’s avowed support and fieldwork for Stalin at a time when the sibling rivalry was testing the patience of even battle-hardened Karunanidhi was stated to be one of the factors. His murder created such ripples in politics that former CM J Jayalalithaa had made a poll promise to reinvestigate in 2011. This despite the case being transferred to Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh at the insistence of the AIADMK to ensure a fair trial three years earlier, and the accused being acquitted by the court. The appeal is pending in the Supreme Court even now.

A little over a year later, when coastal Tamil Nadu was reeling under the trauma of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the State recorded another DMK ex-minister falling for blood thirsty rivals. Morning walks became a nightmare for the State politicians following the murder of former law minister Aladipatti Aruna alias Aladi Aruna of the DMK in Alangulam. Unlike the previous cases, the motive was more monetary than political in the murder of Aruna.

Starting his career in the DMK where he became an MLA twice, Aruna defected to MG Ramachandran’s AIADMK which nominated him to Rajya Sabha once. During his tenure as Upper House MP, he was a member of the Parliament Committee that probed the Bofors scam. He returned to DMK after MGR’s demise and went on to become law minister in 2006-11 DMK tenure. Aruna was known to be bold, criticising the party leadership for denying him a Lok Sabha ticket – which had him expelled from the DMK.

A politician-educationist, Aruna was said to be engaged in a business rivalry with SA Raja, an educationist in the southern district, on whose behest he was allegedly finished off. The case saw two convicts being awarded death penalty, which was later reduced to life term. Though acquitted by the lower court in 2008, Raja was awarded double life by the High Court the next year, only to be acquitted by the SC for want of evidence in 2010.

Of the political murders in the last decade, one of the most sensational was that of the Tiruvarur district secretary of the DMK, ‘Poondi’ Kalaiselvan, in 2007. A district secretary hailing from DMK president Karunanidhi’s native Tiruvarur, Kalaiselvan was a powerful DMK functionary who had his own “Ilaignar Padai” (youth brigade) for protection. He was the prime accused in the murder of AIADMK local functionary Ko Vi Sampath in Koradachery in 2004. He was stated to have played a role in the encounter death of the notorious history-sheeter Manalmedu Sankar.

Kalaiselvan was murdered by some of the big names among the history-sheeters, who joined his business and political rivals in Tiruvarur. The first accused ‘Kurangu’ Senthil, once a close associate of slain gangster Manalmedu Sankar, hatched the 

plan with a business rival who lost tenders to Kalaiselvan, and kin of murdered AIADMK functionary Sampath.

Like in Pandian’s case, the assailants used country bombs and sickles to attack Kalaiselvan, whose death led to tensions that even forced cancellation of trains from Tiruchy to Mannargudi.

That a dozen and a half DMK ministers, MPs and MLAs had taken part in the funeral procession in riot-hit Tiruvarur, which put police on high alert in at least all surrounding districts, should explain the political significance of the murder. Senthil, the prime accused, was later killed in a police encounter.

It was not just the DMK that lost leaders to such ghastly murders. A Venkatachalam of the AIADMK was murdered in 2010 by a four-member gang, which attacked him with sickles inside his house in Pudukkottai. Elected thrice from Alangudi, including once as an independent in 1996, Venkatachalam had served as tourism and then backward classes minister in Jayalalithaa’s 2001-06 cabinet.

He was the organising secretary and then the deputy secretary of MGR Mandram. Though police maintained that he was murdered by his rivals within the party, Jayalalithaa, then the Opposition Leader, had demanded a CBI probe. His murder triggered a riot in his native village Vadakadu.

The next political ‘murder’ to hog the limelight was that of Dalit leader C Pasupathy Pandian at Dindigul during the AIADMK regime in April 2006. A controversial Dalit leader who faced a number of criminal cases, including a murder case in the 1990s, Pasupathy Pandian was the treasurer of the PMK when Dr S Ramadoss founded the party. He quit the PMK along with Dheeran and later floated his own outfit, Tamizhar Arasu Party.

He was engaged in bitter rivalry with Venkatesh Pannaiyar who was killed in police encounter in 2003. Pandian was felled by his rivals only in the second attempt on his life in 2012 – he had survived the first bid in April 2006, which claimed his wife’s life. The needle of blame pointed to associates of Venkatesh Pannaiyar.

Pandian was an accused in the murder of one of the relatives of Pannaiyar in the 1990s.

The most prominent of all political murders in the recent past took place in 2012. Brother of former minister and the Tiruchy satrap of the DMK, KN Nehru, KN Ramajayam had mysteriously disappeared, again during a morning walk, only to be found dead days later. He was a big fish in real estate business, and was also known for his organising skills. He was thus Nehru’s go-to guy in organising party events in Tiruchy. There was a time when DMK men had even called him the Alagiri of the party’s Tiruchy unit. But even after seven years, Ramajayam’s murder remains an embarrassing mystery that the CBI is still struggling to solve. The DMK had paid tribute to one of its chief organisers by erecting a 90ft flag-pole in his memory at its zonal conference in Tiruchy a few years ago.

Blood shedding in the DMK refused to die down as the party saw another killing in January 2013. This time, the victim was N Suresh Babu alias ‘Pottu’ Suresh, a close associate of M K Alagiri and a member of the DMK’s high-level committee. Suresh was heading home from his office when a two-wheeler hit his car. As he came out of the car, a six-member gang surrounded Suresh and hacked him to death before escaping. The murder happened just a little away from Alagiri’s home, and a day after his Anjanenjan had celebrated his birthday in Madurai. Police said intra-party rivalry was his undoing. ‘Attack’ Pandi, another confidant of Alagiri, was arraigned as the prime accused in the murder. He has been in prison since then.

There also were murders of political functionaries, which, however, were more communal in nature

2012 Aravind Reddy of BJP medical wing was murdered in Vellore

2013 State BJP general secretary ‘auditor’ Ramesh was hacked to death in Salem. CB-CID arrested Panna Ismail, Bilal Malik and ‘Police’ Fakrudeen, who were also indicted in a pipe bomb case

2018 Sasikumar of Hindu Munnani was murdered in Coimbatore. The case was probed by the National Investigation Agency.