EPS Wants Case Against Nataraj Withdrawn

Chennai: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami wanted the State government to withdraw the cases filed against his party’s former MLA and retired senior IPS officer R Nataraj for sharing a WhatsApp message in a group and also against his party’s IT wing office-bearers immediately.

In a statement on Saturday, Palaniswami said the DMK that was campaigning for freedom of expression when it was not in power had started throttling the voices of dissent after forming the government, going against democratic norms.

He flayed the arrest of some television journalists, AIADMK’s IT wing office-bearers and Nataraj, who had been bringing out the truths about the 30 month old DMK government through social media, which only betrayed the DMK’s lack of tolerance.

Palaniswami, through another statement, also urged the government to immediately stop the newly started practice of collecting personal data of women availing of the free service in government buses, terming it as an invasion of their privacy.

As of now the data collection was being done by the bus conductors, who seek 15 details from the women passengers, in the districts of Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu and Thiruvallur in the past few days, he said, adding it was a needless exercise that could jeopardize the women’s personal safety.

Asking the women to reveal personal details like name, phone number, age and so on could lead to anti-social elements noting down the number even as the women speaks to the conductor and then harassing them by sending needless pictures and photographs, he said.

Pointing out that the conductor asking the women passengers to reveal their caste identity was something that happened nowhere in the world, be it onboard flights or trains or ships or any other mode of transport, he said such information was of sensitive nature particularly in the context of unsavoury incidents relating to caste discrimination.

The Leader of the Opposition said that continuing the practice of collecting personal data from women all over the State could have undesirable ramifications and wondered if the Chief Minister had discussed it with senior party leaders about it.

Women were already angry with the DMK government for the way they were treated by bus conductors and others like Ministers who condescendingly describe them as those availing a free service and for not operating adequate number of ‘pink’ buses during peak hours, forcing women to board other buses, he said.

The case against Nataraj was filed on the basis of a complaint lodged by an office-bearer of the DMK's lawyers wing accusing him of spreading a false message in a WhatsApp group. The message had reportedly quoted Chief Minister M K Stalin as saying that the DMK did not want the votes of the Hindus.

The message also accused the DMK government of demolishing 2,000 temples after coming to power, it is learnt.