Tamil Nadu Minister Dindigul C Sreenivasan apologises to tribal boy, mother

After an outrage, Tamil Nadu Forest Minister Dindigul C Sreenivasan on Friday met the tribal boy who he asked to remove buckles of his slipper and his mother personally and apologised to them for the incident.

The incident which was caught on camera took place on Thursday morning when Sreenivasan came to Nilgiris district to inaugurate a rejuvenation camp for captive elephants in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR).

Sreenivasan, who stayed put in Nilgiris, invited both the boy and his mother to Tamizhagam guest house and expressed regret for Thursday’s incident. The minister’s apology came after a massive outrage on his behaviour of asking a tribal boy to remove his house so that he can go to a temple in the MTR.

“I have personally apologised to the boy and his mother Kaliammal,” Sreenivasan said, adding that he had assured the duo that the government would take up developmental works in their village. The mother of the boy said they would withdraw the complaint filed against Sreenivasan under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

This is not the first time the minister is ordering someone to remove his footwear – he had earlier asked a government official to remove his slippers during an event.

Several users posted the video and tagged Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami asking him to remove Sreenivasan from the Cabinet.