Part of DMKs Tiruchy HQ on usurped land

TIRUCHY: Former minister and DMK strongman K N Nehru was arrested on Thursday on charges of encroaching a Rs10-crore land, according to a complaint by Dr K Srinivasan, a medical professional of Thuraiyur. Other charges against him include assault on the doctor’s family members.Srinivasan who owns a 13,920-sq ft-land on the Karur bypass road in Tiruchy said the land was illegally encroached upon in December 2006 by some persons on the instructions of former transport minister Nehru.Subsequently, Srinivasan, his wife, Manimegalai, and his father, Krishnasamy, were forcibly taken to the office of the former minister at Thillainagar in the city, where deputy mayor M Anbazhagan, DMK functionary Sundarajan, along with Nehru, his brother, K N Ramajeyam, and others, including Anbil Periyasamy, Anbazhagan and Sekar, assaulted them and forced them to sign an unregistered document. Those papers were an agreement for the sale of the 13,920 sq ft of land, on which a part of the 32,000 sq ft building of the DMK district headquarters, Kalaignar Arivalayam, is constructed. Srinivasan said in his complaint that a sum of Rs 40 lakh was given to him as advance for the ‘sale’ of his property, and that the amount was later snatched away by two DMK partymen on the way to his house in Thuraiyur.Later, Srinivasan and his wife were taken to Nehru’s office on September 7, 2007 and coerced into signing the sale deed in favour of him on behalf of the DMK. The land was thus registered without paying any compensation.Based on the complaint, the city crime branch police registered a case on Thursday against 11 people, including Nehru. Subsequently Nehru and his associates Anbil Periyasamy, Sundararaj, Sherif and Mamundi were arrested and remanded in judicial custody. In protest of his arrest, several DMK cadre tried to block roads but dispersed at Nehru’s request. The former minister, Periyasamy and Sundarraj were taken to the Cuddalore prison and are now lodged there.Before being taken away, Nehru told reporters, “The specified land was purchased for Srinivasan through me. When I asked for the land for Kalaignar Arivalayam, he willingly handed it over to our party.”