Chennai: Two cadres of the ruling DMK were arrested late last night on charges of misbehaving with a woman cop during a function in the city on the New Year day.
As the incident caused embarassment to the ruling party with the opposition demanding their arrest, the DMK suspended them from the party last night.
The duo, S.Praveen and C.Ekambaram, were arrested a couple of hours they were temporarily suspended from the DMK for violating party discipline and for acting in a manner that brought disrepute to the party.
In a statement last night, DMK General Secretary Duraimurugan announced that both of them were temporarily suspended from the primary membership of the party.
The suspension comes in the wa,ke of Opposition parties, including the AIADMK, BJP and the AMMK, strongly condemning the incident and criticised the state government for not taking steps to arrest them.
The police earlier claimed that the CCTV footages they had seen showed it was an accidental body contact and not an act of sexual harassment.
Police also said that the woman cop has withdrawn the complaint last evening after the duo tendered an unconditional apology. The policewoman was allegedly molested by the two DMK workers during a public meeting organised to commemorate former DMK Minister K Anbazhagan’s birth centenary on Sunday.
The incident happened in Chennai’s Virugambakkam with DMK heavyweights including Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi Health Minister Ma Subramanian and Legislator AMV Prabhakara Raja on stage When other policemen on the spot reportedly found their collegaue in tears, they surrounded the duo in order to arrest them. However, they were prevented by the DMK cadres and were allowed to go and no complaint was registered.
AIADMK Interim General Secretary Edappadi K.Palaniswami, expelled AIADMK leader O.Panneerselvam and AMMK Founder TTV Dhinakaran hit out at the state goverment and demanded the immedate arrest of the duo.
BJP State President K Annamalai also condemned the incident. “Disgraceful state of affairs in Tamil Nadu. Governance is in deep slumber. Two DMK youth wing functionaries molested a police constable on protection duty in a public meeting”, he tweeted.
However, with the Opposition making it a big issue and the Assembly session set to commence from January 9, the DMK suspended the duo following which they were arrested.
