‘I live a lonely life now’: Karur victims’ families grapple with grief, weigh support for Vijay
While questions remain for those who lost their loved ones, many stop short of holding only the TVK chief accountable
Caption: Vimal, whose son (photo on the wall) was the youngest victim in last year's stampede, and his mother Jayashree at their home in Karur. "Who can we blame? We lost our life,” he says. Credit: Manoj C G (Photo enhanced with AI) Jayashree may have recounted a hundred times the tragedy that hit her family barely seven months ago, but her eyes still well up when she talks about her grandson, the youngest among the victims of the stampede that occurred at a Vijay rally here last September.
Dhruv Vishnu was just three months short of his second birthday when tragedy struck the family. His smiling face is the wallpaper on the mobile phones of both Jayashree and her son, Vimal. At his recently opened shop where he sells water purifiers, Vimal recounts his meeting with Vijay in Chennai. He was accompanied by his wife Matheswari, his mother, and seven other family members. Vimal says he and Matheswari, who is speech and hearing-impaired, had Vishnu two years after marriage. At the Chennai meeting, Vijay sat on the floor near an inconsolable Matheswari and touched her feet in a gesture of apology, Vimal recalls.
His house and the shop are barely a hundred metres from the road where the stampede occurred. Vimal says he is apolitical but a Vijay fan. His elder sister Lalli and her husband had come to attend the rally along with their teenage son and daughter, and had taken Vishnu along. Like the families of 40 others, Vimal is also waiting for justice. He doesn’t blame Vijay. “No one expected such a huge crowd. The arrangements could have been better and there could have been more police personnel to control the crowd. Who can we blame? We lost our life,” he says.
Barely five kilometres from the spot is the village of Emur Puthur, where multiple families lost their loved ones in the stampede. K Sakthivel who lost his wife Priyadarshini and teenage daughter Dharanika signals he can support Vijay in the elections but believes his wife and daughter will rest in peace only when those responsible for the stampede are punished. “Only God knows what happened that day. The truth should come out. I don’t know who to blame. I am yet to comprehend what happened,” he says.
“We lost our loved ones. I live a lonely life now. We need justice for them. The administration should have ensured adequate security arrangements. Vijay too came late because of which more and more people reached the place,” says Sakthivel, who works as a supervisor in a state-run liquor retailer TASMAC. Like the families of others, he too met Vijay in Chennai. “Vijay apologised, but I told him that his party cannot escape accountability as it was also their responsibility to ensure proper arrangements. He listened patiently,” Sakthivel says.
When asked about elections, Sakthivel says, “Everybody believes there should be a change. Whosoever will do good for the people, they should be accepted. Whosoever will give safety to the people, do welfare for the people, we should accept them.” Though he refrains from openly supporting Vijay, he talks about change, the central narrative of the TVK chief’s campaign.
Ruling DMK’s heavyweight leader Senthil Balaji won Karur in 2021. This time, the DMK candidate is Asi M Thiagarajan, though most of the wall writings identify him as a nominee of Balaji, who has been tasked with breaching the AIADMK-BJP stronghold of western Tamil Nadu and is contesting from faraway Coimbatore (South).
Vimal, too, appears cagey when asked who he will support, but his mother is quick to chip in and say he will vote for Vijay. “He (Vimal) is not saying openly, but he will vote for Vijay,” she says. Jayashree, however, has one complaint about Vijay. He should have visited the homes of the victims, she says, adding, “It would have been a thoughtful gesture.” This time, Vimal interjects, saying, “Vijay would have certainly come had the administration promised adequate security.”
Barely half a kilometre from Sakthivel’s house is that of Chandra and Arukkani, both of whom died in the stampede. Sitting in his newly built home, constructed under the Tamil Nadu government’s Kalaignar Kanavu Illam (Kalaignar dream home) scheme of the Tamil Nadu government, Chandra’s son Satheesh Kumar, too, has yet to decide who to vote for, but refrains from blaming Vijay alone for the stampede. The village square has just one banner of Vijay, while the walls of several houses carry DMK and AIADMK graffiti seeking votes for their candidates. Most of the wall writings identify the DMK candidate, Asi M Thiagarajan, as the nominee of incumbent Karur MLA and strongman V Senthil Balaji, who has been tasked with breaching the AIADMK-BJP stronghold of western Tamil Nadu and is contesting from faraway Coimbatore (South). Thiagarajan is taking on AIADMK nominee M R Vijayabhaskar, a former minister, and the TVK’s V P Mathiyalagan.
Like Kumar, Arukkani’s wife Kaliappan also believes the stampede was the result of poor security arrangements. Neither he nor his wife were Vijay’s fans. “She just went for fun. I had told her not to go. But who can stop what has to happen?” Kaliappan did not go to Chennai to meet Vijay, but his son, who works as a tailor in Pudukkottai, did. Kaliappan, too, has yet to decide who to vote for. “There is still some time, I will decide closer to the elections,” he says.
Past results in Karur
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