Chennai: Amidst calls for legal action against him and his party leaders, Tamil superstar Vijay has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the families of those killed in the stampede at Saturday evening’s rally in the Karur district of Tamil Nadu.
Till now, 39 people have died and nearly 40 are in hospital. The Tamil Nadu government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the families of those killed and Rs 1 lakh for the injured.
Vijay was to address a rally of his party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) at Karur on Saturday evening. About 10,000 people were expected to turn up for the event, but over 27,000 gathered at the venue. Things started going wrong after Vijay’s arrival was delayed. He apparently reached the rally site six hours late.
As per the Tamil Nadu health secretary P Senthil Kumar, the deceased include 17 women, 13 men, and nine children. Director of medical education Suganthy Rajakumari said the postmortem and handover of the bodies would be completed soon, adding that the government had arranged for accommodation, food, and other necessities for the victims’ families.
Several leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal have expressed their concern regarding the situation in Karur and offered condolences to the families of the victims.
Leaders across the political divide, including chief minister Stalin, deputy CM and DMK leader Udayanidhi Stalin, AIADMK’s Edappadi Palaniswami, and BJP leaders Nainar Nagenthran and Tamilisai Soundarajan went to Karur to meet the victims’ families and extend their support.
