Chennai: A city court on Monday remanded MDMK chief Vaiko to 15 days of judicial custody in an eight-year-old sedition case after he filed a surrender petition and declined the bail offered by the magistrate.
“I have not committed any crime, so I shall not apply for bail”, Vaiko told magistrate S. Gopinathan of the XIV metropolitan court when the latter asked him to apply bail following his surrender petition. After this, the magistrate remanded him to prison and Vaiko was taken to Puzhal prison but not before he made a dramatic speech before TV cameras.
The sedition case arose from a speech Vaiko made during the release of his book ‘Naan Kutram Saattugiren’ at the Rani Seethai Hall in Egmore on July 15, 2009. In that speech, he had allegedly hailed the banned LTTE, slammed the Centre accusing it of helping Colombo in the war against the Tamil Tigers and accused the then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi of failure to prevent the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
In December 2009, the police registered case against Vaiko under sections 124(A) (sedition) and 153(A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language) of IPC.
The police filed the charge sheet the following year.
Speaking to media persons after the remand now, Vaiko recalled that his 2009 speech was intended to highlight the betrayal of the international powers and TN politicians that led to the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka. He made a high-decibel appeal to the MDMK cadres not to resort to any agitations in protest against his remand.
MDMK advocate Nanmaran said despite several efforts made by Vaiko to get the trial commenced, neither the police nor the prosecution showed interest. That led to Vaiko surrendering today, he said.
