Political leaders pour angst over Dinesh's suicide

Chennai: All round angst erupted over the suicide of medical aspirant Dinesh in Tirunelveli out of frustration at not being able to make his alcoholic father give up alcohol.

The strongest reaction came from PMK chief Dr. S. Ramadoss who wanted the AIADMK government to own responsibility for the death of the 18-year-old youth.

He said the state government must be held as the first accused in this tragedy. Senior AIADMK leader and fisheries minister D. Jayakumar however maintained that the policy of the AIADMK has been total prohibition “from the days of MGR and Jayalalithaa.”

“The government is firm on its policy to implement total prohibition. There is no second opinion on this. That is why Amma (former CM J. Jayalalithaa) had closed 500 shops and another 500 were wound up by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami. This is a social problem; one should abstain from drinking after seeing a drunkard,” he said reacting to the incident. He claimed that the State government was conducting an awareness programme on the issue.

“Suicide is not a solution. The death of the youth (Dinesh) is distressing, tragic and unfortunate. We want total prohibition but if its prohibited totally, it may make inroads from other states or lead to hooch tragedies. So, it should be eliminated in a phased manner and we are firm on achieving this goal,” Mr Jayakumar added.

Fisheries minister D Jayakumar said that the state had closed down 1,000 liquor shops, adding that the problem of alcoholism could be resolved only when people decide to abstain from drinking

DMK working president M. K. Stalin said, “the state government’s priority for Tasmac sales has claimed the life of the innocent youth Dinesh. It is not known how many lives will be claimed.”