Image credit : Illustrative Image

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday ordered the removal of all banners, cut outs posters and buntings in Tamil Nadu put up for MGR centenary celebrations after a NRI youth, on a week-long visit to Coimbatore died in an accident caused by one such temporary hoarding erected on the road.

The accident took place on Avinashi Road, which is the main road of the city, on Friday.

A petition citing this accident, highlighted in the Covai Post with exclusive video footage, was filed by a DMK leader in the Madras High Court, which ordered the removal of all such banners, posters and giant cut outs outside on the roads leading to venues holding MGR centenary celebration functions.

K. Ragupathi, 32, a software engineer, was to return to the US shortly, but was killed after he hit a hoarding erected on the road in Coimbatore. “Who killed Ragu?” painted on the road by young IT professionals, went viral and created a huge impact on the social media.

Once the petition came up in the Madras High Court, the court took a very serious view of the incident and came down heavily against the state government and gave just two days for the removal of all hoardings, cut outs, posters, buntings and the like. All political messaging boards erected on the roads, without necessary permissions, must be removed the court observed.

But the Tamil Nadu government had in the past refused to heed to High Court orders and it remains to be seen if this time around things are going to be any different.

The state government maintained its stand that Ragu died in an accident and it was not responsible for the accident. However, the Madras High Court order has given out a clear order of removal of illegal arches, banners, cut outs many of them jutting out on the roads obstructing normal flow of traffic.

But with Madras High Court stepping in, the Coimbatore administration must obey and remove all offending illegal political publicity materials.