Cheers turn to tears, Jayalalithaa’s party workers had descended in their thousands on Bangalore early in the morning, waving AIADMK flags and “Amma” banners, flashing the victory sign and posing for photographs. Arriving in buses and vans since 7am, they had turned the 20km route from the old airport, where Jayalalithaa later touched down, to the jail courthouse into a political carnival with some 10,000 police watching cautiously. The prohibitory orders clamped within 5km of the prison complex didn’t deter the 5,000-odd party faithful, who gathered at a road junction 2km from Ground Zero where they were stopped by armed security personnel. But zeal gave way to despondency early in the afternoon when news of the noontime conviction trickled out of the court, and a tense wait began for the sentencing. The jail term was pronounced around 3.30pm but it took a while for the information to reach the crowds. As the sun set and hopes of immediate bail ebbed, some of the party workers broke into sobs. Some others shouted slogans against M. Karunanidhi and his family before slowly beginning the trudge back home to Tamil Nadu. Inside the court, Jayalalithaa initially “looked tense but composed” before the verdict left her giddy and ill, said a lawyer who was present. After sentencing, she was taken to the prison health centre for a check-up. The media were allowed inside the jail complex but barricaded 300 metres from the courthouse, where only a handful of senior AIADMK leaders, MPs and ministers were let in. Jayalalithaa’s trusted aide O. Panneerselvam was stopped at the road junction where the party workers had gathered as the local police failed to recognise him at first, leaving him shouting: “I’m a former chief minister.” Eventually, an inspector identified him and gave him a ride to the court. At the junction, party supporters waited patiently in the sun. Jayalalithaa’s car sped past them along a road cleared of traffic around 10.45. She wore a dark sari. Nearby shops, bars and restaurants had been ordered closed. Such a lockdown was not seen even when B.S. Yeddyurappa, who had just resigned as Karnataka’s chief minister, was taken to the same jail on judicial remand in October 2011. The courthouse lies diagonally opposite the central jail’s main gate. It was built when H.D. Deve Gowda was chief minister in the mid-1990s and is used sparingly for high-profile cases. Its advantage is that the VIP convicts don’t have to be taken out to be put in jail. First major trial it hosted involved the fake stamp paper scam accused, Abdul Karim Telgi.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000
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