A video of the incident went viral which showed Thomas casually walking on the road, overturning vegetable laden trays, carts and throwing them on the ground on Tuesday. The immediate backlash resulted in Thomas addressing the media that he had acted only to ensure there was no repeat of a Koyambedu-like scenario in Vaniyambadi. While locals said he had done it to clear the crowd in the area, especially after a spike in positive cases in the town, the TV footage did not reveal that the local tahsildar and DSP were also with him, who seized tea cans from sellers on the same stretch.

Following the backlash, Cecil Thomas came to the same spot on Wednesday morning and handed over gift bundles s to two women traders Chitra and Poongudi while another affected seller, Sathya, was absent. He also gave the women Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,500 each, sources revealed.

SHRC seeks report: The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has taken suo moto cognizance of the incident and sought a detailed report from Commissioner of Municipal Administration within two weeks. SHRC Acting Chairperson, Judge Durai Chandran and Member A Chittaranjan Mohandoss, IAS have also asked the Vaniyambadi Municipality Commissioner to file a report in this regard. “This incident shows the Commissioner’s high handedness towards the fruits vendors and violated the human rights of the vendors,” read the report.

“If the street vendors or fruit vendors violated the rules and regulations laid down during the lockdown period, the Commissioner should have taken action against them as per law. But in this incident, the Commissioner had exceeded his powers and taken the law into his hand, which resulted in vandalism,” said the Judge Durai Chandran and Member Chitaranjan Mohandoss.