Anaicut DMK functionary denies charges of land grab, levelled by residents

VELLORE: The political temperature in Anaicut panchayat union went up a notch after the DMK Anaicut central PU secretary P Venketesan on Friday alleged that his political opponents were egging locals into lodging a police complaint on a more than three-month-old land grab issue.

The genesis of the issue follows 4 persons – G Saravanan, G Hari Narayanan, S Ashok Kumar and S Arun Kumar - handing over a petition with supportive documents at the SP’s office on Thursday night stating that Venketesan had allegedly trespassed into 7.45 acres of their land and was lifting sand illegally using machinery.

The petition further alleged that Venketesan snatched and broke the ‘thali’ of one of their relatives, Kavitha, wife of Murali, in the melee and also assaulted the land owners. The issue went viral on social media. Though the petition was dated November 30, there was no mention as to when exactly the thali-breaking incident occurred.

When asked, Venketesan told DT Next that the incident happened more than three months ago and the land in question was his grandfather Ramakrishnan’s ancestral property. He said, “the complainants successfully moved the court in 1994 and when the land was measured one of the survey numbers was left out. When I along with relatives was shifting my house I came across Ramakrishnan’s will which was in our favour. I showed it to the complainants and told them that the left out survey number proved that it was our ancestral property as it was in Ramakrishnan’s name.”

Elaborating, he said, “the land is presently fallow and is not being used by anybody. My political opponents are wantonly raking up an old issue to spoil my name. I neither snatched any thali nor did I assault anybody.”

SP S Rajesh Kannan said, “We will act on the petition after verifying whether the area is patta or government poromboke land.”