Indian court permits signature campaign to lift ban on LTTE !

The Madras High Court, the top court situated in Chennai(then Madras), the capital of southern state Tamil Nadu in India, in a landslide ruling couple of days ago, directed the Chennai city police commissioner to allow a film director to hold a signature campaign in the city making an appeal to the Centre to lift the ban on the LTTE.

The proposed campaign is to be conducted at Saidapet in the city on March 30.

Pugazendhi Thangaraj is the director of "Kaatrukkenna Veli", a film released in 2003 which revolved around the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Though he had completed the film in a year and a half from 2000, his film had to go through a lot of censor problems and bans for another one and a half year before it finally hit the theatres that Diwali.

Even then he sought the help of the same court to lift the ban to release that pro-LTTE movie.

He is the organiser of 'Karuthurimai Kalam', a forum advocating right of expression, submitted that he had wanted to hold a signature campaign last year in Saidapet area of the city but was denied permission bu the Police.

Police rejected his request on the ground that any meeting, demonstration or signature campaign in support of the banned organisation was an offence, Thangaraj submitted.

Allowing the petition by the petioner(Pugazendhi Thangaraj), Justice K. Chandru set aside the order of commissioner T. Rajendran, denying him permission for the signature campaign.

The judge also directed the police commissioner to provide sufficient protection to the petitioner for the event.

The judge said the petitioner had expressed his intentions very clearly. “He wants to send a petition to the Governor of TN and, for this, he wants signatures from members of the public, which he intends to collect in a public place,” the judge said.

“The exercise is to express to the Union government through the Governor of Tamil Nadu that the people in the state oppose the ban on the LTTE under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) (UPA) Act.”

“It is not clear how this could be unlawful, especially in the context of the constitution guarantees given to citizens of India,” the judge added.

LTTE supporters in the state are rejoiced by the ruling and getting ready in full swing to conduct the signature campaign in grand scale.