Panel divided over Gundupatti incidents

It is reliably understood that Gandhi, in his note to the government, has questioned the other members’ conclusion that the police were not responsible for the damage.

"The committee should not conclusively affirm thatthe police were not responsible for the ransacking of houses in Viduthalai Nagar and `B’ Colony hamlets in Gundupatti", Gandhi has said in his note. The other three members are said to have been of the view that it would have taken 12 hours for the police to have inflicted the alleged extent of damage.

Gandhi, however, disagreed. He referred to Kodaikanal RDO P Muthusamy’s report that he had rushed to Viduthalai Nagar and B Colony on hearing sounds of glass windows being smashed.

The nondescript Gundupatti village shot into limelight when the residents of Viduthalai Nagar and B colony were allegedly tortured and their houses ransacked on February 26, six days after the villagers apparently kept Kodaikanal panchayat union chairman M Vadivelu of the DMK and a six-member police team "in wrongful confinement". The DMK panchayat chairman had gone to the village to canvass for votes when irate villagers reportedly heckled him over the lack of link roads in their area. The villagers later complained that theywere attacked and "extensive damage" was caused to property including TV sets and utensils worth Rs 43 lakh damaged. The incident embarrassed the DMK government which rushed the high-level official team to the village following it up with a CB CID probe and, more recently, a judicial enquiry. Home Secretary Poornalingam, DGP F C Sharma and Forest Department secretary K S Sripathy, who were part of the official team, are said to have maintained that the policemen were confined in the village on February 18 and 19 and harassed by the villagers. Gandhi, however, said there was "no evidence to show that the policemen were harassed or confined".

In his report, Gandhi also questioned the police claim that the villages had damaged their own property to show the police in poor light. "Will the poor villagers smash their TV sets? Will they destroy their weddingphotographs?", Gandhi had asked.

The Kodaikanal RDO had in his report said that the police had "mercilessly beaten up" women in the village and recommendedthat action be taken against the police personnel. When contacted Home Secretary R Poornalingam told The Indian Express that the committee had given only an oral report to the government. "No formal report has been sent so far", Poornalingam concluded.