'A personal grief'

By S.Shanker and

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI, FEB. 5. If the entire student community in the State is grieving over the recent killing of three TNAU girl-students, for one student of the Madras Veterinary College whose grief is horrifyingly personal. Simply because she was just three kilometres away from the crime spot at Ilakiyampatti.

Visibly upset and simmering with rage, the student recounts what took place on that fateful February afternoon. Though it was sheer coincidence that the incident happened when she was on a trip home, memories of the billowing fire and smoke will stay with her forever. So too, will her bitterness with the local politicians, who she blames for destroying the peace and goodwill of the idyllic hamlet in Dharmapuri.

``It was gruesome - you should have been there to believe the extent of the horror that the incident unleashed'', she says. It seemed she was merely waiting for an opportunity to vent her immense anguish.

Very excitedly, she recounts the sequence of events leading to the gory killing, ``People, who were apparently from other villages, came in three or four cars, distributed the petrol bombs to locals, and sped away, a little before the incident.''

There were several private and public transport vehicles plying on the route and it seemed to her and the village, that the entire episode was preplanned, because the TNAU bus was singled out as target. The whole town will vouch for this- ``ask any of the auto drivers, they'll tell you''. According to her, the move to target a TNAU bus carrying students was strategic, as it would immediately catch the attention of the nation.

Despite the proximity of the spot to the Collectorate, the authorities appeared to have swung into action belatedly. Even when they did, they seemed to have initially thwarted the rescue operations that some of the bystanders had taken up. `` While students belonging to a nearby college were trying to free those trapped inside the bus, the police mistook them for the perpetrators of the crime and beat them up'', she says.

Other college-mates who also hail from Dharmapuri, sharing her anguish, said, they were ``ashamed to reveal that they were the natives of the town''.

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Section  : Regional
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