Aide of Karunanidhi's wife arrested in land grabbing case

An aide of Rajathiammal, wife of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) patriarch and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, was arrested in connection with an alleged land grabbing case today, police said.

Ramesh, the accused, was arrested following a complaint from one Nirmala Devi and 31 others that he had allegedly forcibly evacuated them from their homes in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar in Tiruchirappalli on Pongal day in 2007, police said.

One other person, Thambirajan, was arrested yesterday in connection with the case, they said.

The complainants said they had been living in the area for about 20 years and the accused had used their influence with the Revenue Department and demolished all their houses and converted them into plots and began selling them.

They claimed that even after a directive from the Madras High Court last year, police had not acted on their complaint.

They also claimed that even the Assistant Commissioner of Urban Land Tax had, in 2008, decided that the land did not come under the Urban Land Ceiling Act and as such did not belong to the government.