Chennai, Apr 15
Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai and about 300 party cadres were booked under sections 143 (unlawful assembly) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by the Sulur police in Coimbatore late on Sunday (April 14, 2024) night, after they staged a protest at Ondipudur, against the obstruction of their convoy along a previously permitted route, by the police.
This is the second case registered against the BJP leader in Coimbatore over the past week — three days ago, a case was registered against him by the Peelamedu police under the same two sections along with section 290 (causing public nuisance).
The police purportedly stopped the convoy at around 10.30 p.m. on Sunday, on the grounds that the permitted time for campaignining concluded at 10 p.m. and directed them to go along an alternative route. However, Mr. Annamalai maintained that he was not campaigning, but only greeting people en route, with the lights of his vehicle switched off.
The stand-off had caused a traffic jam along the route.
In a social media post after the incident, Annamalai said the “excesses of the DMK government through the police force had gone beyond all limits, as they stopped our campaign vehicle yet again today for flimsy reasons…The draconian DMK government will face the people’s wrath when Coimbatore will unanimously cast its vote on April 19, disapproving of the three years of misgovernance.”
