Actor-politician Vijay’s party TVK has alleged a DMK conspiracy behind the stampede at yesterday’s rally in Karur that left 40 people dead and nearly a 100 injured. TVK’s lawyer, Arivazhagan, has told NDTV that the party has approached the Madras High Court with a petition that urges the court to set up a Special Investigation Team or to transfer the case to the central agency CBI. Mr Arivazhagan trashed the state government’s contentions that safety guidelines were violated at the Karur rally.

Mr Arivazhagan, the state coordinator of TVK’s legal wing, said they will raise the matter before the Madurai bench of the high court tomorrow. “There was a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy in the incident at Karur, so we requested the honorable high court to investigate the matter independently, not by state agency,” he told NDTV. “The court has to constitute a special investigation team, or they have to transfer the case from Tamil Nadu police to CBI,” he said.

Asked if TVK does not trust the state police’s investigation, the lawyer replied, “There was a criminal conspiracy. We received reliable information from the local people, and we have some CCTV footage. It shows that there was a criminal conspiracy by some ruling party functionaries in the Karur district.”

Countering the DMK government’s allegations that the rally violated safety guidelines laid down by police, Mr Arivazhagan said, “We did not violate any conditions imposed by the police, we did not.” He said TVK conducted several events over the past couple of months in Madurai, Trichy, Ariyalur, Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Namakkal. “How this happened in Karur, that is the question. It creates doubt.”

Sources in the state government have said people gathered at the Karur rally venue since noon, but Vijay reached only around 7 pm. And a crowd of 27,000 people gathered at a venue with a capacity of around 10,000. The sources have claimed the delay was deliberate and that TVK leaders wanted the crowd to swell.

Trashing this claim, the TVK lawyer said, “The delay was not on our party. The delay was caused due to poor traffic. That is the reason we could not reach the destination on time.”

The state government has responded strongly to the tragedy, flagging safety violations at the Karur rally. TVK’s general secretary N Anand, joint general secretary Nirmal Kumar and Karur West district secretary, VP Mathiyazhagan, now face a police case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and other sections. The state government has also ordered a judicial inquiry headed by a retired High Court judge.