Chennai professor gets whisked away by plainclothes cops over abusive Instagram post he never made

Tamil Nadu Law Minister CTR Nirmal Kumar says the police action was a mistake and that it had been rectified. Peak of fascism, says Stalin.

Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) A. Kalaiyarasan has accused the Tamil Nadu Police of unlawfully detaining him | Photo sourced from mids.ac.in

Chennai: Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) A. Kalaiyarasan has accused the Tamil Nadu Police of unlawfully detaining him after three plainclothes officers arrived at his Adyar residence around 5 am Wednesday, seized his phone and took him away in a rented car for questioning over an abusive Instagram comment he says he never posted.

In a detailed complaint addressed to Director General of Police Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal on 28 October, Kalaiyarasan said the officers claimed they were taking him to T4 Sankar Nagar police station in Pammal in connection with an alleged abusive comment against J. Kamatchi, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) legislator from Pallavaram.

“They did not furnish any document authorising the inquiry, not even a copy of the complaint or FIR. They just alleged that I had posted an abusive comment…from an Instagram account which I have no idea of,” Kalaiyarasan said.

Kalaiyarasan, co-author of the Cambridge University Press book The Dravidian Model: Interpreting the Political Economy of Tamil Nadu and a former contributor to the Tamil Nadu government’s Economic Survey, told the officers he did not have an Instagram account and had never heard of the legislator. Despite this, he was taken away in his nightclothes without being allowed to inform his family. The vehicle stopped by the roadside near Pallavaram for about 45 minutes while the officers made and received calls. They later told him they had received orders to drop him home.

The police showed Kalaiyarasan a screenshot of an Instagram account that used his photograph as its profile picture. In his letter, Kalaiyarasan said the picture appeared to have been taken from the Harvard University website, where he was earlier a research affiliate. After reaching his apartment, he was asked to write a letter stating he had no connection with the account. His phone was returned and he was dropped home around 7.45 am.

“I felt deeply harassed and humiliated by the way I was treated, without being given even a reasonable opportunity to explain myself. Moreover, I am the victim in this case, as someone misused my photograph to create a fake Instagram account and post abusive comments against the person I do not even know of. Yet I was treated like a criminal, with policemen arriving at my doorstep in the wee hours, taking me away in my nightclothes,” he wrote in his letter to Aggarwal.

The incident comes days after Kalaiyarasan gave a television interview discussing the sharp rise in prices of essential commodities under the present administration. He expressed concern that such actions could discourage public participation in debate and academic engagement, and requested the police chief to take action against those responsible for the alleged unlawful detention, creation of the fake ID and misuse of his photograph.

DMK president M.K. Stalin on Thursday strongly condemned the incident, calling it the “peak of fascism” of the TVK government. “How big a shame is it to leave actual criminals free and try to intimidate academics? Why was Dr Kalaiyarasan arrested? Was it for promoting the term ‘Dravidian Model’ and proclaiming to the world the development Tamil Nadu achieved under Dravidian rule? Or was it for stating the truth that only after the TVK government came to power has Tamil Nadu faced an unprecedented rise in prices?” Stalin wrote on social media platform X.

Sankar Nagar police sources said that Kalaiyarasan was taken for questioning because the Instagram account carried his name and photograph, and denied allegations of harassment, stating the professor was returned after it was established he had no involvement.

The professor has sought appropriate action against those responsible for the detention and the creation of the fake account that misused his image.

Tamil Nadu Law Minister CTR Nirmal Kumar responded, saying that the police action was a mistake and that it had been rectified. “It was an error because of his picture and name on the social media account and there was a misunderstanding due to the same. I have spoken to him and if there is a mistake we will rectify it,” he told the media.

Professor Kalaiyarasan later met the chief minister at the Chennai Secretariat in the presence of DGP Aggarwal.

(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)