‘Complete disciplinary proceedings against officials involved in Thoothukudi firing'
People's Watch, a Madurai-based Human Rights organisation, has urged the DMK government to complete the pending disciplinary proceedings against 17 revenue and police officials involved in the police firing at anti-Sterlite protesters in Thoothukudi on May 22, 2018.
People's Watch Executive Director Henri Tiphagne urged the government to place the officials under suspension. The DMK government should remind itself of its electoral promises made in 2019, 2021, and 2024 to punish all those responsible for the killings.
People's Watch demanded that the government immediately intervene, asking for closure of the CBI investigation entrusted by the Madras High Court and hand over the probe to be carried out in a timely manner, and complete it before the 2026 elections, through highly competent police officials, preferably monitored by a highly reputed senior police officer from outside Tamil Nadu and comprising sufficient senior officers of the rank of DGP, since several IPS officers and IAS officers had been found responsible for the killings and injuries caused.
Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission of Inquiry, which probed the firing incident, had submitted its report to the government in 2022. The Commission named 17 officers from the rank of IPS to constables, as well as from the District Collector to the Deputy Tahsildars as responsible, he said.
The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly adopted the report in May 2022 and consequential orders were passed by the government. Despite three years having passed since the report had been submitted, on the seventh anniversary, disciplinary proceedings against the police and the revenue authorities were still pending. No single official had been held guilty even in the disciplinary proceedings, let alone initiating criminal prosecution that necessarily had to follow, he said.
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