On Saturday, August 12, Tamil Nadu Finance and Human Resource Management Minister Thangam Thennarasu met the Dalit siblings who were hacked by seven minors in Nanguneri Perutheru village in the state on August 9. Along with Thennarasu, Assembly Speaker Appavu and Nanguneri MLA Ruby Manoharan (Congress) met the 17-year-old Chinnadurai and his sister, 13-year-old girl Chandraselvi, who belong to Paraiyar community (Scheduled Caste) at the Tirunelveli Government Hospital. The siblings were attacked by seven students from their school who belong to the Maravar community, a sub-caste of Thevar (Backward Class, BC).
Speaking to press persons after meeting the survivors and their family, Thennarasu said that stringent action will be taken against the perpetrators who committed this heinous crime and affirmed to the family members that the Tamil Nadu government will support them. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin contacted Thennarasu while he was meeting the family and spoke to them over the phone. According to Thennarasu, Stalin promised them that the government would stand by the victims, offer better treatment, and ensure that their education is uninterrupted.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi announced that the government would bear the higher education expenses of the siblings. “I will enrol them in a better institution. As the Minister of School Education, it is my responsibility,” he said.
Chinnadurai is a class 12 student in a government-aided school in Valliyoor, where he was regularly subjected to caste-based harassment by students who belong to the Maravar community. Since the last week of July, Chinnadurai was reluctant to go to school. After 10 days of long absence, his class teacher called Chinnadurai's mother Ambikapathi to enquire about his absence. He revealed that he was subjected to harassment and bullying. Later, the class teacher warned the students who bullied him.
Reportedly irked by this, the students attacked Chinnadurai and his sister with sickles on the night of August 9 and fled the spot. Nanguneri police nabbed the six accused and booked them under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and lodged them at the Government Observation Home at Palayamkottai. The seventh accused, who was on the run, was arrested by the police on Saturday morning.