Chennai, Sep 27 (PTI) : Violence broke out in several parts of Tamil Nadu on Saturday after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was convicted in a graft case, with supporters of her party pelting stones, committing arson and forcing shops to down shutters.
The protesters burnt effigies of M. Karunanidhi, the president of the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), his sons M.K. Stalin and M.K. Alagiri, and tore party posters in various places including in Chennai and Madurai.
Some protesters of Jayalalithaa’s All-India Anna DMK pelted stones at the residence of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, who, as leader of the Janata Party in 1996 had filed the disproportionate assets case in which she was convicted on Thursday.
Jayalalithaa, 66, was convicted by Special Judge John Michael D'Cunha of a Bangalore court of owning assets worth Rs 66.65 crore, a value disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991-96, when she was chief minister for the first time.
The Supreme Court had transferred the case to a Karnataka court in 2003 on a petition filed by a DMK leader, who had expressed doubts over the conduct of a fair trial in Chennai with Jayalalithaa as chief minister.
DMK and AIADMK supporters clashed at Gopalapuram here.
A bus of the state-owned transport corporation was set on fire at Veppur village and some 20 buses damaged in stone-pelting in Cuddalore district, police said.
Stone pelting incidents were reported in Ambattur here, Edapadi in Salem district, Cuddalore and in Srirangam, Jayalalithaa's assembly constituency, police said.
Shops and commercial establishments downed shutters in various parts of the state.
Protesters also damaged two-wheelers parked alongside roads in Madurai, they said.
In Chennai, effigies of DMK leaders were burnt in Poes Garden area.
In Madurai, AIADMK men blocked traffic and asked the shops and business houses to close their units.
Police said some shops were ransacked and stones pelted in Tiruchirapalli and Dindigul.
Security personnel in large numbers have been posted to maintain law and order, police said.
