Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) leader Aadhav Arjuna “absconded” immediately after the Karur stampede that claimed 41 lives and then posted an inflammatory tweet insinuating a revolt against the Tamil Nadu government by the youngsters and Gen Z as had happened in Sri Lanka and Nepal, the Chennai cybercrime police told the Madras High Court on Wednesday.
Appearing before Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira, senior counsel N.R. Elango, representing the prosecution, urged the judge to not go by the arguments of senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi who had contended that there was no mens rea on the part of Mr. Arjuna to incite a revolt and hence the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him must be quashed.
Mr. Elango requested the court to take into consideration, the circumstances in which the tweet was posted on X platform. “On September 27, there was a stampede at a political campaign in which this petitioner took an active participation. He absconded. Did not take responsibility. He vanished. Thereafter, he surfaced on X on the midnight of September 29,” the senior counsel said and read out the Tamil tweet.
“The entire State was boiling with great sorrow that night. The honourable President of India, the Prime Minister and everybody was worried about the stampede but this petitioner absconded after the stampede for which he was responsible and posted this tweet,” the senior counsel said and claimed that the editing/deleting of the tweet would not absolve him of the need to face prosecution.
