Six days after seven-year-old Aakash from Padur protested against a TASMAC shop, 23 school students, including the seven-year-old, went to meet the Kanchipuram collector P Ponniah on Monday to submit a petition to close the liquor shop.
While the collector promised to shut it down, the TASMAC shop in Padur was open at around 12:30pm on Tuesday. “When Aakash went to check if the shop was open, seeing him, four staff workers in the shop put the shutter and stayed inside the shop. When people around asked the staff to come out, the staff came out and the shop was shut,” his father Anandan said.
The 23 students all hail from Padur. “All the students who went to meet the collector are from Class UKG to Class XII students. They all are from different schools. They met the collector in the afternoon,” the father said.
Speaking to The News Minute, Aakash said, “I went to the collector around 11:30 am. We told him that there is a wine shop and he should close it. The people living in the area are suffering because of it. He told me that they will surely close it soon.”
He also added that they submitted a petition with signatures from about 1,200 people living in their area.
On Wednesday last week, Aakash sat near a TASMAC shop in Padur holding a banner that read “Kudiyai vidu, padikka vidu” (Reject liquor, allow us to study). From noon onwards, Aakash stayed there for more than three hours protesting the liquor shop.
Asked why they went to meet collector, “We went to the collector because even though I went and protested in front of the shop on Wednesday, they did not shut the shop. If again, the collector does not shut the TASMAC shop in few days, I will again protest in a different way,” he said.
During Aakash’s protest on April 19, the police personnel had closed the liquor shop for two hours, and later, the Tehsildar and Village Administrative Officer (VAO) promised to talk to the higher officials and shutter the TASMAC shop.
Earlier, Aakash’s father, Anandan, had told TNM, “The shop was situated near the only public toilet in that area. There is a Dalit colony nearby, and everyone from the colony uses this one toilet. The lake is also near the TASMAC shop, and women often come there to collect drinking water. After the TASMAC shop was opened, it has been difficult for women to come and collect water.”