Just Spamming | Too Many Intrigues In A Single Arrest

One of the most intriguing events last week was the early morning ‘arrest’ of an economist attached to a traditional and reputed research institute, by the ‘police.’ An author of the book, ‘The Dravidian Model: Interpreting the Political Economy of Tamil Nadu,’ A Kalaiarasan, shot into the limelight after three men in civvies knocked at the doors of his flat in Adyar at around 5 am, introduced themselves as police personnel who had come to take him to the Sankar Nagar police station in Pammal for an interrogation on a derogatory comment made in his Instagram post against Pallavaram MLA J Kamatchi. A sleepy Kalaiarasan tried to explain that he did not have an Instagram account but the ‘cops’ wouldn't listen and took him for a ride in the taxi in which they had come.

As those who follow the news know, he was dropped back at his residence after about one and a half hours when Kalaiarasan tried to explain a lot of things to the ‘cops’ and demanded that they return his mobile phone for him to inform his family about the arrest. The first thing that the cops had done as they barged into his flat was to snatch the phone. After he persisted on its return to enable him to make a call, they handed it over for a few minutes when he called a couple of friends in the media. When the captors received a call on their mobile, they stopped the car on the side of the road near Pallavaram and had a long conversation. Then they took the U turn.

So far, so good because the ‘cops’ did not misbehave like policemen other than snatching the phone and being brusque in not heeding to anything that he was trying to reason out with them. But even three days later the mystery over the early morning knock, which was reminiscent of the arrests of politicians and activists when Emergency was declared in India in 1975, persisted because nothing was explained by the government or the police or anybody though the collective anger over the harassment meted out to an academic seethed on social media and a plethora of top political leaders, including former Chief Minister M K Stalin, reacted to the unsavoury incident.

Even after Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay called Kalaiarasan to his chamber in the Secretariat and told him that it was a mistake and that it would not recur, the people of the State were not officially told how the goof up happened and there was no explanation on the misadventure despite the cacophony in social media raising several questions on the police’s style of functioning and the purposes of the government. For one such question on the reason for the early morning operation, Thol Thirumavalavan, president of VCK, TVK’s ally in the government, responded saying that a daytime arrest would draw public attention. Maybe the VCK leader thought the humble academic would be normally surrounded by big crowd like politicians

But others know that Kalaiarasan could have been called to report at the Sankar Nagar Police station, which he would have obliged as an academic working for a reputed government research institute. So obviously it was to unleash ‘terror,’ a common style of operation adopted by the police to intimidate criminals and in this case to prevent academics from speaking their mind on government policies. Kalaiarasan had given an interview to a television channel a few weeks ahead of the police party landing at his flat. In that interview the academic had said that inflation under the present regime had shot up unprecedentedly in the State. After the telecast of the interview, some police personnel had called him over the phone and even asked for his present address. Obviously, anyone soaking in power and glory would not take such criticism. But isn’t there a law that requires the following of due process while executing an arrest? Why was an academic treated like a dangerous criminal for speaking openly in front of a television camera?

Even after the government agreed that it was a mistake – apart from the Chief Minister meeting the academic personally, the Law Minister, C T R Nirmalkumar, confessed to the error in open – why was it not revealed as to who exactly erred. What action was taken against the three policemen who decided to throw all conventions to the wind? Why was their identity not revealed? To which officer do they report to and whom were they speaking to after stopping the car? Who paid for the taxi hired for the operation? Above all, what was the government trying to achieve by arresting the academic other than sending a warning to others like him? Common people are expecting answers from the government and police department to these and many more questions. They do not want political leaders of alliance parties to reply.

For, the general fear is that any citizen of the State could be put through such trauma and if an ordinary person – in these days of social media anyone could earn the wrath of the government or the intolerant police through a candid comment - is subjected to such harassment how would he raise an alarm? Finally, why has the police not investigated as to who opened that fake Instagram page with the profile picture of Kalaiarasan just to abuse a woman MLA?