Two Dalit farmers Kannaiyan, 72, and Krishnan, 66, from Tamil Nadu’s Salem district, received summons from Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged money laundering, despite having a mere Rs 450 in their bank account, their lawyer Dalit G Pravina said.

The summons, delivered in July 2023, raised questions as the two brothers, residing in Attur, owned only 6.5 acres of land and were stuck in a long-standing dispute with G Gunashekar, a senior BJP leader from Salem East. The BJP spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy confirmed the ongoing land grab allegations between the parties but highlighted that the ED case was unrelated.

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Despite the ED closing the case following public backlash, the troubles persist for the brothers, who recently filed a police complaint against Gunashekar for harassment and casteist slurs, reports IE.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Krishnan shared, “This morning, he and his team abused us, including using casteist slurs. We have been fighting a case against Gunashekar since 2020 over attempted land grab. He and his men did not let us farm our land for three years.”

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Their lawyer Pravina added that the brothers were unable to farm on their own land for years due to threats from BJP leaders. They started ploughing their land for the first time in years today and still, there was resistance from the land mafia, she claimed.

The brothers’ legal ordeal stemmed from a 2017 incident where they set up unauthorised electric fencing around their farm, resulting in the deaths of two Indian bison. ED sources told The Indian Express that the 2021 acquittal of the brothers had been “overlooked.”

BJP’s Thirupathy told The Indian Express, “The party’s Salem leaders say the BJP has no role to play in the entire episode. The ED summons have nothing to do with the land dispute between Gunashekar and the farmers. In fact, both parties have filed multiple cases against each other, including both civil and criminal. The ED case was registered against the brothers in connection with the killing of two bison. The agency had collected details of the farmers from the state forest department and sent them summons.”

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Addressing the controversy, a senior ED source in Chennai said, “It was a lapse on our part. The whole issue was blown out of proportion by social media ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tamil Nadu.”

The ED summons also contained a clerical error, mentioning the brothers’ caste as ‘Hindu Pallars,’ which the agency later acknowledged.

During their visit to the ED office in Chennai on July 5, 2023, the brothers faced challenges with illiteracy, recounting, “ED officials gave us two bundles of forms, some 20 pages each. Since we are illiterate, Pravina helped us fill them. Then, she was asked to leave so they could interrogate us. This, despite us having already submitted our land records. When she told them that PMLA permits a lawyer to stay present during questioning, they got angry. They denied the existence of such a law and even tried to send her away. We told ED officials that we would leave if she was not allowed to remain present during our interrogation.”

Pravina, barred from the interrogation, sought police intervention, stating, “Citing rules, the police team requested that I should be allowed inside. When ED officials refused, my clients decided not to cooperate with them. Before we left the ED office, an official shouted at us for calling the police to the ED office. They said they would send summons again, even if I called Chief Minister M K Stalin. I recorded a video of them saying that and went to the DGP’s office, where I filed a case seeking action against them.”

She alleged that her subsequent complaint to the state police faced resistance. “The brothers were forced to mortgage their land to borrow Rs 50,000 to appear before the ED and other proceedings. And now, these elderly men will have to pay it back despite the PMLA case being a baseless one.”

Meanwhile, Pravina’s husband, B Balamurugan, a Deputy Commissioner-rank officer with Chennai (North)’s GST and Central Excise department, wrote to President Droupadi Murmu seeking the dismissal of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for “converting the ED into an extended arm of the BJP.”