Eight units demolished near Pallipalayam Three persons were arrested on Wednesday on charges of stopping officials of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) from removing illegal dyeing units near Pallipalayam. Pallipalayam police registered a case and arrested them based on a complaint from the Village Administrative Officer. Police said that C. Karupugounder (60) and G. Periyathambi (32) of Pallipalayam; and N. Sasikumar (30) of Erode were booked under sections 341 and 353 (stopping government servants from performing their duties) and 506 (ii) (threatening to murder) of the Indian Penal Code. They were produced before the Tiruchengode Judicial Magistrate and remanded to judicial custody. Fourteen machineries (five winches and nine jiggers), two generator sets, and 62 cement tanks – used for manual dyeing – were removed in a drive against illegal dyeing units near Pallipalayam in Tiruchengode taluk on Wednesday. Eight units were demolished by the TNPCB on the Kaliyanoor Road, Sillankadu and Molasi. Persons running the manual dyeing units on the Kaliyanoor Road protested the demolitions stating that the TNPCB spared the bigger units and targeted the manual dyers. TNPCB District Environmental Engineer (DEE) K. Gokuladas who headed the drive, told them that all illegal units would be removed without any bias. The protestors then guided the TNPCB officials to a unit on a sugarcane field on the Kaliyanoor Road. “It would have been impossible to identify it without the help of the villagers. The unit with three winches was in a concrete building that looked like a house and was locked from outside,” the DEE said. He told The Hindu that the machineries could not be seen as it was carefully hidden inside the building. “It was a place where our team had already demolished an illegal unit a few months ago,” he added. The building and the machineries were removed using an earthmover. In another unit nine jiggers were evicted in one big unit at Sillankadu. The team then removed a unit – with two big winches – at Molasi that was located on the banks of River Cauvery and dumping effluents into the river. It was identified based on a complaint that was lodged by the villagers to revenue officials. Officials from the TNPCB Flying Squad in Erode, Police from Pallipalayam and Molasi and Revenue officials were present during the drive.