Machete lathes come under watchful eyes of TN police
After seizing over 1,000 sickles during the last weekend storming operation, the state police has decided to keep an eye on makers of such arms and have asked them to maintain a registry of the buyers with their addresses and phone numbers.
Among the places under the scanner is Thiruppachethi, a village in the Manamadurai block of Sivaganga district, popularly known for making machetes of various types and qualities. Sivaganga Superintendent of Police T Senthil Kumar, who met the lathe owners on Thursday, asked them to collate details including names, residential address, contact numbers and Aadhaar cards of machete buyers. Machetes could be sold for domestic/farm use and temple rituals but not to rowdy elements. A total of 42 lathe owners from Thiruppachethi, Thirupuvanam and Manamadurai attended the meeting.
The SP said over the past five days, around 120 anti-social elements were arrested in the district and 160 intimidating weapons were seized from them. Further, surveillance teams have been formed in each of the subdivisions and CCTVs would be installed in vicinities of lathes. If any offender had confessed to buying machete from the lathe, its owner would also be arrested, the SP said.
A Karuppaiah, 63, who is in the business of making machete from his lathe opposite Thiruppachethi police station, said he feared his business might suffer as buyers would hesitate to buy with police imposing new restrictions.
Till some years ago, 25 machete lathes were functional in Thiruppachethi alone, but it has come down to eight now. With most of Thiruppachethi and its surrounding areas still economically backward, many people buy small machetes to cut ‘Prosopis juliflora’ plants (seemai
karuvelam) for making firewood for livelihood. Many Rameswarambound travellers also buy Thiruppachethi-fame machetes, swords and knives, he pointed out.