412 AIADMK volunteers held

Chennai, Feb 11 (UNI) As many as 412 AIADMK volunteers, including 10 women, were arrested today when they attempted to open rice gruel centres for weavers of Virudhunagar, Madurai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts of Tamil Nadu.

The arrested, including AIADMK legislators Mr Hari and Mr Narasimhan, former minister V Somasundaram and former MP Kanchi Panneerselvam were remanded to judicial custody, police said.

The party workers decided to open the centres to distribute the gruel to cooperative weavers, who were out of work for the past eight months, following directions from AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa.

Meanwhile, Ms Jayalalithaa justified her party workers' attempt to open rice gruel centres for the suffering weavers.

In a statement here today, she said such move was well within the law.

Ms Jayalalithaa alleged that the minority DMK government had failed to safeguard the interests of the weavers, putting their future in chaos.

The arrest of the AIADMK workers was murder of democracy, she said and demanded that all the arrested should be released immediately.

She charged the DMK government with anti-people attitude, dictatorship and high-handedness.

The people would soon upset the DMK from power, she added.

UNI