Fear grips Mannivakkam as gang rivalry continues

By K. Manikandan

KANCHEEPURAM, JULY 10. Gang rivalry continues unabated in the Mannivakkam area and political functionaries and the general public live in a state of fear about the safety of their close ones involved in political activity and in the real estate business.

The latest of the murders, of Suresh Kumar on Sunday at Ratnaachi Kulakkarai, not far away from the police outpost at Mannivakkam, was only a fallout of the murder of Ratnam, who was hacked to death a day earlier at Perunkulathur. Murders as a result of gang rivalry are nothing new to residents of this area.

Such murders have been taking place at regular intervals, especially for the past two years alone. As many as 10 persons have been hacked to death, many of them in broad daylight.

An AIADMK functionary, Ravi was murdered in October 1998 and Kothandam, a DMK supporter, two months later.

In April 1999, another DMK supporter, Velumani, was killed, and Ganesan, an accused, was hacked to death even as he was being brought to court in September that year. Political murders continued elsewhere in the district with two popular functionaries of the AIADMK, R.K. Kumar and Adikesavan, having been murdered at Kancheepuram and near Chengalpattu respectively.

One Ponnurangam was hacked to death on May 31 2000, and Kanniappan, an AIADMK sympathiser, was done to death on September 19 the same year.

Even as the police were raking their brains on how to deal with the situation, the force was shell-shocked when `Nondi' Kumar, a well-known DMK man, was hacked to death after having been pulled out of his house in the afternoon. The gang, armed with deadly weapons arrived in a car, pulled him out of his house and attacked him mercilessly. Police sources said a profusely bleeding Kumar fell down unconscious. Thinking that he was dead, the assailants got into the car, but when Kumar mumbled and called out to his family members to rush him to hospital, they returned and continued to hack him until he died. Tense moments were witnessed in the Mannivakkam area following the murder.

The murders had not stopped as Purushothaman of the AIADMK was murdered in Guduvanchery on December 13, 2000 and Senguttuvan of the DMK was hacked to death in February this year.

However, what ripped the guts of the police, the public and even the political functionaries was the murder of Ms. Menaka, Dalit president of the Urappakkam panchayat, inside her chamber on the panchayat premises in broad daylight in March last.

The murder took place right in front of Mr. Nehru, her brother, who just managed to escape the barbarity of the accused. With sharp protests from political parties and women's organisations, one thought that the Government had woken up from its slumber and would take urgent steps to prevent recurrence of such incidents. That was not to be and the latest murder of two gangsters only point to police helplessness.

Sources, while lamenting that Mannivakkam can rightly be rechristened `Murdervakkam', say several factors have contributed to the growth of gangs in the area. The Mannivakkam, Urappakam and Guduvanchery areas are in the suburbs of Chennai and real estate prices have been soaring, thanks to a clean and copious supply of water there. This has led to the growth of mafia groups which compete with one another in controlling the trade.

It is not possible for the police themselves to keep vigil in every village coming under the Otteri and Guduvanchery police station limits, they add. However, there are some others who feel that with the series of murders, the police could deploy pickets in sensitive places and trouble-prone areas.

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