CHENNAI: Senthil Kumar, a police head constable at the wheels of a Joint Commissioner’s SUV, never expected that he would undergo a harrowing experience on Monday on the Poonamalle High Road - Dr Nair bridge junction, the day the week-long jallikattu protest had a bloody climax. The violence was, of course, spreading across the city from the morning, though at Marina beach, the epicentre of the jallikattu protest, police were peacefully negotiating with the agitators to return home, saying the government has issued the ordinance in favour of the bull taming sport.
Violence erupted in other parts of the city after people in hamlets near Marina started clashing with cops after barricades were erected on all roads leading to the beach. Mr Kumar was alone in the Toyota Innova, as the joint commissioner had already alighted from the SUV. And he decided to move ahead at around 3.10 pm, seconds after a bus full of strike force personnel reached the point. As the stone pelting started, the strike force disappeared with the bus and the police SUV become the target of the unruly crowd.
“I was shocked. I never understood the reason for them attacking me with clubs. They dragged me out. I could not reason out things for some time,” Senthil Kumar, who was attacked by the mob on Poonamalle High Road for being the driver of a police officer’s vehicle, told this newspaper. For protesters, he was more policeman than a Tamil. He was not spared by the mob for being Tamil, but attacked for wearing khaki. “By the time I was saved from the mob by a group of public, I had suffered head injury and a fracture on my hand”, Senthil Kumar (40) said. After dragging him out of the car on Monday at around 3.10 pm, the mob turned the police vehicle upside down and set it on fire. As Senthil Kumar was trying to move slowly from Dr Nair Bridge to Poonamalle High Road after another car managed to go without being stopped, the unruly crowd started pelting stones at his vehicle. The fury was clearly aimed at it because it was a police vehicle.
The mob was hitting the vehicle with clubs and started throwing concrete slabs as Senthil Kumar slowed the vehicle. As soon as he stopped the car, a man in a red T-shirt started attacking him with a club. As soon as he got down, some right thinking people escorted him away from the scene while the mob was busy setting the vehicle on fire. Senthil Kumar suffered a fracture in his left arm besides an injury on his head.
“I was taken to a hospital in semi-conscious stage where I started vomiting. Seeing me vomiting, doctors there referred me to GH for a scan of my head,” I am waiting for the report, Senthil concluded.
