Karunanidhi running away from probe: Jayalalithaa

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JULY 10. In an unusual but well-planned exercise, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms. Jayalalithaa, today released a ``dream interview'' - posing the questions herself and providing detailed answers to the burning issues on hand.

In the 10-page question and answer statement, Ms. Jayalalithaa has addressed three very crucial and sensitive issues - the problems with the media, the arrest of the DMK chief, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, and the controversy over the arrest of two Union Ministers. In her answers, she goes to the very heart of the dispute.

Ms. Jayalalithaa accused Mr. Karunanidhi of ``running away'' from inquiry commissions and argued that the Raman Commission of Inquiry was appointed to arrive at the truth of the conflicting versions of the incidents surrounding the arrests of the DMK leaders. ``It is because they know fully well that their version is wrong that they are not willing to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry,'' she said.

Mr. Karunanidhi, she said, was a ``man of two faces.'' While he kept harping publicly that he was willing to face any inquiry against him, ``when an inquiry commission is instituted, he always runs away from it.''

If both the raw footage of Sun TV and the police video were submitted before the Commission, ``the truth will come out that Sun TV had cleverly managed to evoke public sympathy through selective editing and manipulation of visuals as a ploy to create a law and order problem in the State and to divert the attention of the people.''

Ms. Jayalalithaa defended the police action in the arrests and denied that Mr. Karunanidhi was manhandled. She justified the arrests of the Union Ministers, Mr. Murasoli Maran and Mr. T.R. Baalu, and claimed that ``sufficient grounds exist for both these Union Ministers being dismissed on the basis of a complaint from the affected policemen.''

Explaining that Mr. Karunanidhi's role in the flyover scam was that of a ``facilitator'' in the ``corrupt activities'' of his son and Chennai Mayor, Mr. M. K. Stalin, she said it was for inquiring into this that the former Chief Minister was arrested.

Ms. Jayalalithaa maintained that Police Manual Rules necessitated the arrest of a political leader with a mass following only after midnight. The police had a right to effect the arrest without a warrant as they were dealing with a cognisable offence. There were sufficient grounds for arrest in the flyover case, she added. Denying charges that she was adopting a confrontationist attitude to the Press, she insisted that she had the highest regard for the media. But the Press had chosen to take a confrontationist stand, she said.

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