Chennai air show deaths: AIADMK lodges complaint with National Human Rights Commission

The secretary of the AIADMK’s advocates wing, I.S. Inbadurai, in a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission’s chairperson [Vijaya Bharathi Sayani], called for a “full and independent” inquiry into the “mismanagement and failure of” the Tamil Nadu government that led to the death of five “innocent persons” at the Indian Air Force (IAF) air show in Chennai on Sunday (October 6, 2024).

The secretary of the AIADMK’s advocates wing, I.S. Inbadurai, in a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission’s chairperson [Vijaya Bharathi Sayani], called for a “full and independent” inquiry into the “mismanagement and failure of” the Tamil Nadu government that led to the death of five “innocent persons” at the Indian Air Force (IAF) air show in Chennai on Sunday (October 6, 2024).

Meanwhile, the ADMK Workers’ Rights Retrieval Committee coordinator O. Panneerselvam on Tuesday (October 8, 2024) contrasted the crowd management carried out by the AIADMK regime during the Jallikattu agitation on the Marina in January 2017, when he was Chief Minister, with that of the present DMK regime after Sunday’s air show.

Mr. Panneerselvam, who arrived from New Delhi, told reporters at the Chennai airport on Tuesday night that while the agitation went on for about a week, there was “no untoward incident” and that law and order was “maintained well.” But this time, despite lakhs of people having assembled on the Marina, the government remained “careless” and had “failed” to provide basic amenities to the public.

The AIADMK’s complaint, which carried a report, ‘Chennai air show deaths: What went wrong on the Marina’, published in the web edition of The Hindu on October 8, 2024, blamed the State government for “poor planning and mismanagement” in handling the crowd and traffic. 

While Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, and their family were “provided with excellent arrangements, including air-conditioned enclosures,” the public faced “severe hardships,” the complaint said.   

Comparing the latest event with the previous air show held in September 2003, when 13 lakh persons — about 2,00,000 fewer than Sunday’s show — attended with no heatstroke fatalities, Mr. Inbadurai pointed out that the Commission had the power to take notice of such incidents, investigate, and take necessary action against the erring officials responsible for the loss of five lives.