The vignette of Madurai Mayor, G Thenmozhi, appearing before the local district court on Friday to obtain anticipatory bail, fearing arrest in a land grab case, was something the people of the temple city had never dreamed of seeing. As one with a reputation of being a very close associate of Union Chemicals minister M K Alagiri, Thenmozhi was regarded as invincible. That the long arm of the law at last caught up with her is a sign of the changing times. So long, Alagiri’s associates had been reportedly involved in a series of land grabbing with the people watching helplessly as they had nowhere to go and complain.As the southern regional satrap of the DMK and a prominent member of the erstwhile ruling family, Alagiri ensured that his associates enjoyed immunity from the law. So the Department of Vigilance and Anti Corruption filing a case against Thenmozhi and 13 others for turning a blind eye to a DMK functionary’s wife illegally squatting on a piece of prime land belonging to the Corporation was seen as a bold step by the government in cracking the whip against corruption and bringing the corrupt to book.Thenmozhi had to rush to the district court because the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court was hearing a case filed by an advocate, who was also threatened by Rangammal, the wife of DMK functionary Sundarrajan who has been constructing a building on the vacant hall behind a Corporation community hall.Besides Alagiri’s erstwhile fiefdom, in Tiruchy region, where former DMK minister K N Nehru’s writ ran large till recently, many people, who lost their land to DMK thugs, are gathering the courage to walk up to the police and lodge complaints. A special police team set up to look into the complaints of land grabbing arrested 60-year-old R Arivudainambi, DMK’s Corporation Council Zonal Chairman, on Saturday on a case filed by one K Kamaraj of Woraiyur.Arivudainambi, besides refusing to vacate the house in which he was a tenant for about two decades, also illegally occupied the adjoining land, threatening those who raised objections to his activities. But for Jayalalithaa returning to power in Tamil Nadu, the police would not have cracked down on him, people in Tiruchy say. The Anti-Land Grabbing Special Wing is expected to take action against many more such DMK functionaries in the days to come after enquiring into the complaints received by them.Another habitual land-grabber and local thug, Kodamudi Sekar, was arrested by the police about a month ago and was booked under the Goondas Act, much to the relief of many people who were terrorised by him during the DMK’s rule.In Coimbatore region, a spate of cases have been filed against DMK functionaries, much to the delight of those who were wringing their hands in despair after losing their land. Coimbatore DMK vice-president E Anandan and Salem DMK councillor, Auto Manickam, were arrested earlier in the week in separate cases of cheating in the real estate business and land grabbing.In Chennai, the First Bench of the Madras High Court pulled up the Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Industries Corporation (TANSI), a government undertaking, for supplying poor quality furniture to courts. The furniture was provided to the courts during the DMK regime after the Bench, pulled up the government for neglecting the judiciary.Observing that the government was spending crores of rupees for distributing colour TV sets, the Bench passed an order on April 18 directing the government to provide the necessary furniture.In short, the days are numbered for all who were involved in corruption of various kinds during the DMK rule between 2006 and 2011 and the crackdown has just begun. It is learnt that the present government has started preparing a dossier on each of the senior DMK functionaries who allegedly amassed illegal wealth. Apart from land grabbers, sand miners have also started facing the heat from authorities, who have been instructed not to allow any form of corruption to thrive.
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