Jayalaitha takes on DMK on land grabbing

Taking on the DMK, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday said the Special Police Cells set up in each district would go into the charges of land grabbing during the previous regime and take prompt action to return the land to the rightful owners."The special cell will go into the complaints of land grabbing during the DMK regime in 2006 to 2011 and take action against those involved under various sections of law," she said in a statement.Such a move would bring the wrong doers before the law and return the land to the rightful owners, Jayalalithaa said, adding that the AIADMK in its election manifesto had vowed to take strong action against powerful DMK men who were involved in land grabbing. Alleging that the previous regime did not take any step in this regard though there were complaints, she said police had received as many as 1,449 land grabbing complaints from the public as on July 1 this year.Jayalalithaa said that the special cells had been set up as complaints were pouring and it was difficult for police stations to go into all those complaints.Since coming to power in May after a landslide victory in the assembly polls, the Jayalalithaa government has ordered a statewide crackdown on landgrabbing, with a significant number of local DMK functionaries facing the heat.DMK President Karunanidhi has slammed the crackdown, claiming that false cases were being foisted against his partymen by the Jayalalithaa government to create a "panic situation" among them.