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Jayalalitha claims Karunanidhi gunning for Muslims

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha today mounted a scathing attack on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, alleging that the Muslim community in the state was harassed and subjected to indiscriminate police searches prior to December 6 because he wanted to get credit from "certain quarters".

She did not name the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre as being what Karunanidhi had hoped to influence but said that by heaping indignity on the Muslim community, Karunanidhi had revealed his true colours.

Jayalalitha's attack on the chief minister follows Karunanidhi's statement explaining the preventive steps taken by his government as being for the welfare of the community. His statement came in the wake of the allegation by Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam that the government had done nothing for their betterment.

The Tamil Nadu police had conducted extensive searches and made preventive arrests to prevent any untoward incident on the Babri Masjid demolition day.

Jayalalitha claimed that the searches conducted by the state government in the Muslim-dominated areas had boomeranged on the chief minister. That was why he was asserting that no one could sever his bonds with the minority community, she said.

She alleged that instead of taking action against extremists, the government treated the entire community with disdain. Ever since the A B Vajpayee government assumed office, Karunanidhi had forgotten the minorities, she charged.

Terming as mischievous Karunanidhi's argument that the Babri demolition was responsible for the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore in 1998, she alleged that the "effete regime run by Karunanidhi" was the root cause for the increasing violence.

A chain reaction of violence followed the brutal murder of constable Selvaraj at Coimbatore in November 1997. Karunanidhi had ignored the trouble and had taken no appropriate step to stem the violence, she charged.

She claimed that the recurring violence had turned Tamil Nadu into a land of continuing clashes. She said that when the whole country was in flames following the demolition of Babri Masjid, Tamil Nadu, where she was chief minister then, was an abode of peace.

UNI

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