TN cops make 49 students write Thirukkural as ‘punishment’ for fighting in public

The students were from two private schools in Tirunelveli and engaged in public fights near Palayamkottai bus stand around a week ago.

news Human Interest

While the poet Thiruvalluvar is being politicized on some fronts in Tamil Nadu right now, the state police have found an interesting use for his 1330 couplets: telling clashing students to write all of them down as ‘punishment’.

The Tirunelveli police recently identified 49 school students who engaged in petty public fighting about a week ago. Instead of punishing them by sending them to corrective facilities, they assigned the students with writing all 1330 Thirukkurals as ‘punishment’.

The class 11 and 12 students belonged to two groups, each from a private school in the city. “On October 29, the student groups clashed with each other near the Palayamkottai bus stand, creating a public nuisance. We identified the students based on CCTV footage from the area and traced them to their schools. They themselves weren’t really clear as to why they were fighting with each other,” says Thillai Nagarajan, Inspector of Police, Palayamkottai.

The police then called these students’ parents to the station and informed them of the fight.

“After counselling the parents, we asked if any of the students can recite a Thirukkural without the help of any book; they couldn’t. So I told them to go back home and write all 1330 Tirukkurals and bring it back to the station on Wednesday,” he says.

However, on Wednesday morning, only a few students came to the police station with the Thirukkural assignments. The remaining did not show up, hoping that the police officials would have forgotten the ‘punishment’. However, that wasn't the case.

“We called them all and told them to come to the station, sit here, write all the Thirukkurals, and then go to their schools,” Thillai Nagarajan told TNM. The Thirukkural submissions by all 49 students were sealed with a rubber stamp from the station and given back to them, with instructions to submit them in their respective schools too.

Thillai Nagarajan reasoned that sending these students to correction homes for petty issues will not do any good. “It might actually cause harm to their lives and careers. They are all 16-17 years of age with studies and public exams ahead. I want them to realise their mistake and reform. That is why we did this,” he explains.