The sacred threads of at least eight devotees were cut by a group riding on two-wheelers in Triplicane on Wednesday, a day after BJP national secretary H Raja called for destroying statues of rationalist icon Periyar in the State through his Facebook post. The eight were returning from a temple when the incident occurred.

Group members who cut the threads of devotees, surrendered to the police

Chennai:

At 7 am, within Ice House police station limits, the group raised ‘hail Periyar’ slogans before the act. Later in the afternoon, four persons belonging to Dravida Viduthalai Kazhagam, surrendered at Royapettah police station after the police started circulating the images of those involved in the incident on a WhatsApp group. 

Though there was initial hesitation in filing a complaint, police swung into action after looking at the CCTV footage from the area –Nalla Thambi street junction in Triplicane, after a woman witness called up the control room and informed the cops about people on bikes pulling at sacred threads off a couple of men in the area. 

After police identified the people, it was for them to convince the outfit members to surrender. The surrendered were identified as Ravanan, Rajesh, Prabhakaran and Umapathy. Of the four, Umapathy was booked two years back for a similar offence.

On Tuesday H Raja on his Facebook post, had threatened to destroy statues of Periyar in Tamil Nadu, like BJP cadre did with Lenin’s statues. Later in the day, the police said that they received a complaint from one of the witnesses, Ramesh Rajagopalachari, 58, a resident of Triplicane. 

The arrested were booked under various IPC sections for wrongful restrain, attempt to promote hatred between communities, wounding religious sentiments and criminal intimidation.