Chennai: Union leader, budding boxers come to blows on railway ground
Chennai: A section of railway employees took on Southern Railway Mazdoor Union (SRMU) general secretary N. Kanniah on Friday and roughed him up for impeding the use of the railway ground in Perambur meant for railway employees and their kin.
Things turned ugly when his personal guards tried to make way for Kanniah past a railway employee who had boxed for India and who was training his wards at around 6.40 am at the ground.
Since colonial times, priority of movement is reserved or enforced for the powerful in the judiciary and bureaucracy. The unwritten rule is the common man has simply to make way for the powerful.
The guards of the union leader may have provoked the boxer and his wards through verbal abuse, which culminated in both sides exchanging blows.
Naturally enough, the boxers had the upper hand in the melee. Cops from Sembium Police rushed to the ground and rescued Kanniah from the onslaught.
The trainers, who are at loggerheads with Kanniah, were later identified as members of Southern Railway Employees Sangh (SRES). Kanniah, who downplayed the incident, did admit that they were beaten and claimed that they defended themselves and retaliated.
“We see a conspiracy here by SRES to rake up the issue. It appears
they had been planning this for quite long. We do not want to make any issue out of this. In fact, I have not registered any complaint on this incident”, he told Deccan Chronicle. Kanniah blamed SRES for scheming this as a retort to the SRMU’s stir against the Chief Commercial Manager (CCM).
“He pretends to be the monarch of Southern Railway when he is moving around the ground, a property of Railways, and it is known as ‘Kanniah’ Ground for almost a decade since he started controlling it”, said an SRES member, requesting anonymity.
Pulianthope DCP A. Mayilvahanan, when contacted, said he was aware of the incident and that there were no complaints lodged by either of the parties.
Later in the day, SRES staged a demonstration against a senior railway official for not taking any steps to recover the ground, which was illegally encroached upon by Kanniah.
