Kallakurichi violence: SP and collector transferred

Chennai, July 19: Two days after a large scale violence broke out in a private residential school at Kaniyamoor village near Chinna Salem in Kallakurichi district, the Tamil Nadu Government on Tuesday transferred the District Collector and the Superintendent of Police (SP).

Chief Secretary V.Irai Anbu, in a Government Order, said Additional Director of Agriculture Sravan Kumar Jatavath was transferred and posed as the new District Collector in place of P.N Sridhar.

Sridhar was transferred and posed as Project Director of Chennai-Kanniyakumari Industrial Corridor. He will also hold full additional charge as Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company.

In a related development, Home Secretary K.Phanindra Reddy transferred District SP S.Selvakumar and posted Deputy Commissioner of Police, Triplicane, Chennai, P.Pakalavan as the new SP.

Selvakumar was kept on compulsory wait, sources said.

The shifting of the Collector and the SP comes a couple of hours after Chief Minister MK Stalin chaired a high level meeting through video conferencing with top officials on the Kallakurichi violence which took place on Sunday demanding justice to a 12th standard girl student who had allegedly jumped to death from the third floor of her hostel.

The girl, an inmate of a room on the third floor of the hostel was suspected to have ended her life by jumping to the ground from the top floor.

Reportedly, a postmortem report indicated that she had sustained injuries before her death. Police registered a case and initiated probe.

More than 70 police personnel were injured in the violence as the surging crowd, despite police firing two rounds in the air, broke the police barricades and stormed the school and torched a number of school buses parked in the campus and some police vehicles and ransacked the entire premises.

The investigation into the death of the girl was transferred to the CB-CID wing of the Tamil Nadu police.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) C Sylendra Babu announced the constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe in-depth into the riot, arson and connected incidents in Kaniyamoor in Kallakurichi district on July 17.

SIT has been tasked to unearth the entire conspiracy behind the incident, identify all violators captured in videos, those who formed Whatsapp groups and spread false news resulting in rioting and take action as per law.