Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Wednesday assured the state assembly that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to probe the incident of faecal matter found in a water tank at Vangaivasal in Pudukottai will soon arrest the culprits.
Replying to a special call attention motion in the state assembly on Wednesday, the chief minister condemned the incident. Stating that the SIT has questioned around 70 people over the past one week, he assured that “strict action” will be taken against the miscreants who contaminated the water tank in the dalit colony.
“I would like to assure (the house) that stringent action would be initiated with iron fists against persons engaging in such cheap acts,” he said. Stalin termed the incident as a “sporadic prevalence of caste based discrimination” and recalled the the words of Ambedkar and EVR Periyar—“religion makes a man an animal. Caste turns him into a sewage”.
Appealing to the people to live in harmony and brotherhood, Stalin said the incident is very “distressing” and that he had ordered the authorities to provide proper medical treatment to the people of the village immediately after he heard the matter. “These are stumbling blocks in achieving social justice,” he added. Stalin also informed that Pudukottai District collector Kavitha Ramu and Superintendent of Police Vandita Pandey had visited the village on December 27 and inspected the area.
Giving details on the action taken by the government, Stalin said that a medical team is camping in the village conducting tests among people. “Samples taken after cleaning and disinfecting the tank and the taps reveal that the water now is clean,” he informed the members. He also added that new tap connections have been provided to all 32 houses in the colony and a new overhead tank is also being constructed at a cost of Rs 7 lakh.
The Social Justice Monitoring committee has also announced that a panel constituted by it will visit Vangaivasal on January 13.