Former minister's PA among 4 arrested in land grab case

COIMBATORE: In the continuing crackdown by AIADMK government on land grabbing, the Personal Assistant of former DMK minister Pongalur N Palanisamy and a DMK general council member were among four arrested today on charges of land grabbing at Chettipalayam area on the city outskirts.

The arrests followed a complaint from one Gunasekaran of Peramanallur near Tirupur that the PA, Nagaraj, DMK General Council member Pasupati and two others that they had grabbed one and half acres of land belonging to him in Perur Chettipalayam, worth over Rs one crore by forging documents.

Based on the complaint, Nagaraj, Pasupati, Meenkadai Siva, recently released on bail facing another land grabbing case and real estate broker, Venugopal were arrested, police said.

All of them were produced before the judicial magistrate, Satyamurthy, who remanded them to 15 days judicial custody.

Several DMK leaders, including former Tamil Nadu Ministers N K K P Raja and Veerapandi Arumugam have been arrested on land grabbing charges.

The state government had formed a special cell to exclusively deal with land grabbing cases.

Party President M Karunanidhi has termed the arrests as 'vendetta politics' but Chief Minister Jayalalithaa denied it, saying the special police cells were acting on "genuine" complaints by "affected" persons with no political link.