Forty one dead including ten children, over 50 injured hospitalised, yet actor-turned politician Vijay is yet to visit the hospital or meet the victims. While TVK was quick to blame the ruling DMK government and go to the courts, the question that is being asked time and again is why isn’t Vijay not with the victims?

Eyewitnesses recalled the chaos erupted as there was sudden darkness that set in due to a sudden power failure. That combined with the narrow access roads and a sudden abrupt surge of people just before Vijay arrived towards the main area where he was to address.

In the ensuing panic, growing crowds, and suffocating atmosphere – families were separated, and women and children struggled desperately for air. Post-mortem reports confirm that the victims died due to suffocation.

TVK has insisted that the stampede was not a tragic mishap but a deliberate conspiracy. But Tamil Nadu Police has dismissed this version outright. Additional Director General of Police Davidson Devasirvatham was categorical in his response — there was no stone-pelting, no external provocation. What happened in Karur, he said, was the result of gross mismanagement by TVK’s own organisers.

According to the police, TVK had been instructed to shift the rally from Karur town, where it had initially sought four venues including the Bus Stand roundabout and the Light House. All of these were densely populated business areas, and permission was denied.

Instead, the party was allotted Velusamipuram on the Karur–Erode Road, the same ground where AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami had held a rally just a day earlier, on September 25. The TN government said that TVK ignored warnings, pushed ahead with poor planning, and the consequences were........

© News18