POTA: Handy Weapon to Settle
Political Scores in TN
The New Indian Express
31 March, 2003
CHENNAI: To a 15-year-old, nothing could be more important than the Class X board examinations. But Prabhakaran flunked even before he could take the papers. Failed by the law of the land, he had to wait for the High Court to come to his rescue.
Four months after he was dragged into prison with 28 others the police accused them of being Radical Youth League naxalites, waging a war against the state the Madras High Court ended Prabhakaran's misery when it set aside the POTA charge against him and hit out at the move to proceed against a juvenile under the anti-terror law.
In his 137-page order on March 18, Justice K Sampath concluded that the boy should have been tried only under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2000. The court ruled that the JJ Act will prevail over POTA because it deals specially with delinquent juveniles, their care, protection and development.
Prabhakaran was released the next day from the Juvenile Observation Home at Purasawakkam in Chennai. But there's no saying how long will this experience haunt him.
Prabhakaran's counsel A Rahul says there's another juvenile 17-year old Bhagat Singh _ in the lot rounded last November 28 from the Naxal infested Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu. Those held by the Special Police Wing (SPW) and the `Q' Branch CID also include five women.
Tamil Nadu's six POTA cases all involve political leaders, inviting criticism for the Jayalalithaa government that it's using the new law to settle political scores.
Sivakasi Lok Sabha MP Vaiko of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) became the state's first political victim of POTA when a case was registered against him and eight others in Tirumangalam near Madurai on July 4 last year.
His unflinching support for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a banned organisation for its role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, provided a ready excuse for the government to invoke the anti-terror law.
Vaiko, on his part, maintains: ``There's no change in my stand on support to the LTTE. I supported it earlier, I support it now and will continue to do so in future too.'' His defence is that he never encouraged any violence within Indian territory and had only expressed moral support to the struggle for the freedom of Lankan Tamils.
But it's this LTTE-support charge that's adding to the POTA scorecard.
Tamil Nationalist Movement (TNM) leaders P Nedumaran, Subha Veerapandian, Dr Thayappan and Pavannan were booked under POTA on August 1 last year. They were charged for addressing a meeting in Chennai in support of the LTTE.
While Nedumaran was arrested the same day, police picked up Subha Veerapandian on August 16 and Dr Thayappan on October 3. On August 13, the state government banned the TNM under POTA. Nedumaran has gone to the Madras High Court, challenging the ban on TNM and his arrest under POTA.
This apart, the state police have filed a POTA case against TNM leader Pavannan for a speech he reportedly made in support of the LTTE at a meeting in Erode district. A charge-sheet against him was filed by the `Q' Branch of the state police on January 13 this year.
Another TNM leader, Parandhaman, was slapped with POTA on September 19 lst year after he expressed support for LTTE during the course of an interview. The banned (Tamil Nadu Liberation Force) TNLF's leader Maran was also booked under POTA by the state police on September 11 last year after he threw a letter at reporters in the Thoothukudi court complex, calling for lifting the ban on the LTTE and the release of Tamil leaders arrested under POTA.