The latest attack came on 13 December 2016. At a bend in the road a lorry blocked the route along which S Mugilan was travelling with an activist colleague and his three children. They were driving back at night from a public meeting against the plundering of sand from the River Cauvery by politically connected contractors and sand-mining agents near the town of Karur in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
A dozen hired thugs fell upon their car. ‘Managing to open the door, they pulled me out legs first but I clung on desperately. They grabbed my throat and asked me to leave Karur and never come back,’ says Mugilan. ‘Even though it lasted for only about 10 minutes, they managed to hurt me pretty badly. The locals, seeing us being attacked, rushed to the car and the thugs dispersed. The children were traumatized.’
