Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: IND34864 Country: India Date: 7 May 2009 Keywords: India – Tamil Nadu – MDMK – DMK This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Is there any information available about the death of Mr Elumalai Naicker, Secretary of the MDMK party for Chennai, and who may have been responsible for his death? 2. Is there any information available on a disturbance at an MDMK rally at Marina Beach, Chennai, in the days prior to the killing of Mr Elumalai Naicker? Background note on source availability Very little news was published electronically in India prior to the late 1990s. Even services like the Factiva subscription news database hold very few Indian press articles from the period before the mid 1990s. For this reason, detailed information on Indian press coverage of events which have taken place beyond the recent decade can be very difficult to locate. RESPONSE 1. Is there any information available about the death of Mr Elumalai Naicker, Secretary of the MDMK party for Chennai, and who may have been responsible for his death? A number of reports were located which referred to the killing of an Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leader, Elumalai Naicker, in the suburb of Royapuram in Madras (as Chennai was then known); according to one report the “incident had occurred a few days after a rally taken out by the party”. While no reports could be located from the time of the killing itself several subsequent Hindu reports place the event on 18 April 1994. Two Hindu reports were located which reported on subsequent arrests and court proceedings. According to these reports police alleged that the killing was the work of a nexus between certain Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) members and a criminal gang and that the matter was also tied to a “fight for supremacy between two gangs which were attempting to control the truck operations in the harbour”. It would appear that 19 persons were subsequently arrested. In July 1999 it was reported that “sitting DMK MLA, Mr. R. Mathivanan and three others [had been discharged] from the sensational ‘Elumalai Naicker murder case’” by “Mr. S.S.P. Darwesh, I Addl. Sessions Judge”. No further reports on court proceedings relating to the murder could be located and it is unclear how the case progressed from here. The Madras High Court maintains a searchable judgments database and this was interrogated for cases mentioning the Elumalai Naicker murder but without success (for the subsequent court proceedings, see: ‘DMK MLA discharged in murder case’ 1999, The Hindu, 30 July – Attachment 1; for police claims about the role of criminal gangs in the killing, see: Shivakumar, S. 2001, ‘Political murders continue’, The Hindu, 7 April http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/04/07/stories/04074010.htm – Accessed 7 May 2009 – Attachment 2; the Madras High Court judgments database is available at: <http://judis.nic.in/chennai/chejudis.asp>). It may be of interest that, in September 2001, The Hindu reported on the killing of a number of alleged organised crime figures in Chennai relating that “most gangs are now lying low with police stepping up action against them”. Subsequent reporting in 2005 also suggests that police were continuing to constrain the activities of such criminal gangs in Chennai (Shivakuma, S. 2001, ‘Social, economic factors turned them gangsters’, The Hindu, 20 September http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/09/20/stories/0420401y.htm – Accessed 7 May 2009 – Attachment 3; Ram, A. 2005, ‘TN mercenaries fight Mumbai’s gang wars’, DNA News, 9 September http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1485 – Accessed 7 May 2009 – Attachment 8). News reports referring to the killing of Elumalai Naicker According to a Hindu report of July 1999: “Elumalai Naicker, who was a key aide of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary, Mr.Vaiko, was brutally murdered by a gang near his Royapuram house on April 18, 1994”. The report provides an overview of the ensuing police actions and court proceeding which had followed the murder at that time, noting that a “sitting DMK MLA, Mr. R. Mathivanan and three others [had been discharged] from the sensational ‘Elumalai Naicker murder case’” by “Mr. S.S.P. Darwesh, I Addl. Sessions Judge”. Details follow: Mr. S.S.P. Darwesh, I Addl. Sessions Judge, allowed the discharge petition filed by the four accused, who contended that they had nothing to do with the alleged offence. Elumalai Naicker, who was a key aide of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary, Mr.Vaiko, was brutally murdered by a gang near his Royapuram house on April 18, 1994. The incident had occurred a few days after a rally taken out by the party. The Royapuram police registered a case against five persons including Messrs Mathivanan, Radhakrishnan, S.Sekar and M. Dass, for offences punishable under Sec.147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 302 (murder) of IPC, read with Sec.109 (abetment). They were arrested the next day and remanded to judicial custody. After completion of investigation, police filed a final chargesheet before the XVI Metropolitan Magistrate, George Town, for offences under Sec. 120 B (criminal conspiracy), read with Sec. 302 (murder), read with Sec. 109(abetment), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 150 (hiring persons to join unlawful assembly).of IPC on June 27, 1994. A reinvestigation was ordered and an amended chargesheet was filed in the same court deleting the names of the four (petitioners) as they were not involved in the occurrence. Though the names of the four persons were deleted in the amended chargesheet, the Magistrate committed them also to be tried for the offences (along with 15 other accused persons in the murder case). In the discharge petitions filed before the Sessions Court, Mr.Mathivanan, Sekar, Das and Radhakrishnan contended that they were innocent and they had nothing to do with the offence and they were unnecessarily dragged to the court which caused irreparably loss and hardship to them. The police stated that suitable orders might be passed on the amended chargesheet filed under Sec.173 of Cr.P.C. The Judge said it was unfortunate that the Magistrate had not applied his mind “while committing this case to this court” and he had included the petitioners also in the case. Thus the petitioners were no doubt put to inconvenience and great hardship. They were entitled to be discharged under Sec.227 of Cr.P.C., the Judge said allowing the petitions. Further inquiry in the case against the other 15 accused was posted for August 12 (‘DMK MLA discharged in murder case’ 1999, The Hindu, 30 July – Attachment 1). In April 2001 a report in The Hindu referred to “[t]he murder of Elumalai Naicker, a front ranking leader of the MDMK, in April 1994, [as] one of the most sensational political murders reported in the city” of Chennai. The report lists details of this attack, along with attacks on other figures (two of which are also MDMK functionaries), to illustrate the claim that: “Settling political scores through cold-blooded murders is nothing new in Tamil Nadu politics”. The report also claims that, “[t]hanks to their ‘pervasive influence’, the political hirelings manage to escape from the clutches of law”; reporting that: “The conviction rate for those arrested in connection with these cases is abysmally low”. Pertinent extracts follow and the details surrounding the death of Elumalai Naicker are set in bold. Settling political scores through cold-blooded murders is nothing new in Tamil Nadu politics. And, the murder of Ms.Menaka is only another grim reminder of the administration’s failure to check the violence that has come to grip politics. Police records reveal that during the past few months at least five persons owing allegiance to political parties have been murdered in Chengalpattu district alone and in the last three years there have been 12 political murders in the district. …One of the main reasons for these murders is that politicians do not stop with verbal clash any more. Thanks to their “pervasive influence” , the political hirelings manage to escape from the clutches of law. The conviction rate for those arrested in connection with these cases is abysmally low. Even the two sensational political murder cases of the last decade – the killing of Elumalai Naicker and Siva, both MDMK functionaries of North Chennai – are pending trial. The murder of Elumalai Naicker, a front ranking leader of the MDMK, in April 1994, was one of the most sensational political murders reported in the city. Elumalai was a powerful political functionary and was given police security. Yet, he was attacked by an armed gang when he was talking to a friend in Royapuram. The incident was also a fallout of the fight for supremacy between two gangs which were attempting to control the truck operations in the harbour, police said. Three years later, another MDMK functionary and harbour contractor, G. V. Siva, was hacked to death by a 20-member gang at Madha Koil Street in North Chennai in the early hours of January 22, in 1997. On the fateful day, he was trapped when a flower bedecked car was parked on the road through which he travelled everyday.