Chennai police had a photograph. They picked up the professor. Verification came later

The Indian Express · Arun Janardhanan · 2026-10-29 04:57 UTC

A Kalaiyarasan, economist and professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies, has filed a complaint with the DGP recounting his ordeal.

The police had a photograph. They found the man in it and took him away. Checking whether he had written the offending Instagram comment came later, during a roadside halt on the journey to the station. That, according to police sources involved in securing his return, was how A Kalaiyarasan, an economist who studies the workings of the state, encountered how it really operates at 5 am on Wednesday.

Three plainclothes policemen arrived at his Adyar home on October 28, took his phone and put him in a rented car, he wrote in a complaint to the Director General of Police. Their destination was T4 Sankar Nagar police station in Pammal, south of Chennai city. The alleged offence: An abusive comment targeting Pallavaram TVK MLA J Kamatchi.

Their passenger said he did not even have an Instagram account. The sequence began with complaints from Kamatchi’s team about sustained online abuse, according to police sources. Progress was slow, but pressure from the MLA’s office grew, and local officers picked up some complaints for action.

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