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Coimbatore
is no longer a ‘quiet’ electoral segment
S Gururajan
Coimbatore,
April 18: THE usually quiet Coimbatore district, the industrial
hub of south India, has come to be viewed as a sensitive district
over the past few years, in the wake of communal disturbances and
the serial bomb blasts in the late 90s.
The seeds for
communal tension were sown in the late 80s with stray incidents
of stabbing involving fundamentalists from both communities. These
incidents gained momentum with the murder of Palani Baba, leader
of the Jehad party, in Pollachi in the last quarter of 1997.
The sensational
murder led to a riotous situation in November the same year which
repeated itself in February, 1998, in the form of serial blasts
in which about 60 were killed and over 200 badly injured.
The reverberations
were felt in neighbouring Assembly segments of Tirupur, Mettupalayam
and Udumalpet marked by stabbing incidents in the first two segments
and explosion of bomb at Udmalpet bus stand. Even before these violent
outbursts occurred, Mettupalayam and Coimbatore West together were
counted as a sensitive segment as people of both faiths reside there
in good number, while Tirupur has a large number of textile workers
— most of them migrants from southern districts. Coimbatore
East and Ponglaur Assembly segments are considered as politically
sensitive with farmers being the predominant community in Pongalur.
The communal
violence and the serial bomb blasts which claimed a heavy toll of
human lives and caused immense loss of property in Coimbatore had
its echo in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. The unleashing of violence
had completely halted the economic progress of the Coimbatore region
for over two years. People from neighbouring Kerala stopped coming
to Coimbatore, the nearest commercial hub, for their shopping during
festival season after the outbreak of communal clashes. The district
has been put back on the rails and the economy has regained strength,
thanks to the efforts of the district administration and the police,
but for whose good work, this would not have been possible. To patro
l the sensitive ares in the city, a total of 3,500 men drawn from
various police wings like Rapid Action Force, Special Armed Police,
Central Reserve Police Force and Tamil Nadu Special Police besides
Home Guards would be deployed for security duty during election
time.
Patrol parties,
equipped with arms and communication sets will be deployed at sensitive
and trouble-prone pockets. More than 80 mobile partrols will be
on round-the-clock duty. Besides this, strike forces also will be
on the move. ‘Agni varsha’ and ‘Vajra’ will
also be on the move.
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