Anna University sexual assault: Anbumani Ramadoss condemns arrest of women cadre during PMK protest
The Hindu
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) president Anbumani Ramadoss on Thursday (January 2, 2024) condemned the arrest of Pasumai Thaayagam president Sowmiya Anbumani and the cadre of the party’s women wing for attempting to stage a protest demanding justice for the survivor in the Anna University sexual assault case and seeking women safety in Tamil Nadu.
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) president Anbumani Ramadoss on Thursday (January 2, 2024) condemned the arrest of Pasumai Thaayagam president Sowmiya Anbumani and the cadre of the party’s women wing for attempting to stage a protest demanding justice for the survivor in the Anna University sexual assault case and seeking women safety in Tamil Nadu.
Ms. Sowmiya and members of the PMK women’s wing attempted to stage a demonstration near Valluvar Kottam in Chennai, for which the police had denied permission.
In a statement, Mr. Anbumani said there was no justification for their arrest, and accused the police of stifling the PMK’s protest. If the same number of police personnel, deployed in Vallur Kottam, was stationed at Anna University, then the sexual assault incident would not have taken place, he said.
“Instead of focusing on arresting those who protest, the State government should focus on ensuring the safety of women. If that is not ensured, the MK Stalin-led government should step down,” Mr. Anbumani said.
He alleged that under the DMK regime, crimes against women have risen. The State government must bring to book everyone involved in the assault case and take measures to ensure maximum punishment for them, Mr. Anbumani said.

On World Book Day (April 23), Sriram Gopalan was desk-bound at his noncommercial library and thumbing through pages — not pages that flaunted printed words, but empty pages that hoped to host words, handwritten words. At Prakrith Arivagam, as this library at Alapakkam in New Perungalathur is called, Sriram was swamped by stacks of half-used notebooks. Ruled and unruled, long and short, white and yellowed, smudged and dog-eared notebooks. He was tearing out the untouched pages to settle them between new covers and find them a new pair of hands. Sriram was not labouring at this work alone. The sound of pages being ripped out intact filled the room: he was with people who are on the same page about how half-used notebooks ought to be treated. They collect used notebooks, extract the blank pages which they would ultimately bind into fresh notebooks: on for weeks now, this activity would extend through May. The epilogue to the exercise: donating the notebooks thus made to government schools and benefitting underprivileged children. This “summer-vacation volunteering assignment” is in its second year. And by the look of it, it has added more pages and chapters. Last year, with the support of volunteers from the local residents community, the team managed to repurpose and distribute 800 notebooks to children at a Panchayat Union school at Alapakkam under Nergundram panchayat in Perungalathur. This year, the bar has been set decisively higher.