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Assuring that the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar dam was safe, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday appealed to the people of Kerala not to succumb "to the mechanisations of ill-wishers and unscrupulous mischief mongers".
She also urged the political class of Tamil Nadu to desist from making inflammatory speeches that could affect cordial relations between the two states.
"I make a fervent appeal to the people of Kerala not to succumb to the mechanisations of ill-wishers and unscrupulous mischief mongers. Please do not indulge in acts of senseless violence and vandalism over an imaginary non-issue," she said in a statement in Chennai.
Jaya's appeal came on a day when violence and vandalism was reported on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border with vehicles from this state being allegedly vandalised and even pilgrims bound for Sabarimala from Tamil Nadu being attacked allegedly by some who Jayalalithaa called "their brothers in Kerala".
Jayalalithaa, who said that there was "no justification whatsoever to believe that the dam was unsafe or likely to collapse," called upon the "highly educated and intelligent people of God's Own Country" not to fall prey to the "mechanisations of narrow vested interests of unscrupulous anti-social elements and allow their rational minds to be manipulated to indulge in quixotic acts of wanton mob violence".
"To me, these violence developments are alarming and based on imaginary, unfounded fears which have been fuelled by irresponsible positioning by vested political interests," she said.