On 31 December, after deposing before the Trichy magistrate court in the defamation case, Varun Kumar told reporters that Seeman was making casteist remarks against him. “Who is he to question my mother tongue, my nativity and my caste? I am a proper Tamilian belonging to this land,” he said in Trichy.

This came after Seeman told reporters in Tiruchy on 26 August, “Where do you come from? What’s your language? It looks like it is the ‘birth hate’ he is having against us.”

The verbal spat between the two has escalated in recent days. On 8 January, Varun Kumar’s lawyer criticised Seeman, calling him “a political illiterate”.

Seeman responded by questioning the IPS officer’s political neutrality. “What sort of knowledge does he possess when there is a rule that civil servants should be politically neutral? How can he go all the way to a police conference and call our party a Tamil separatist party?”

Varun Kumar has reportedly called NTK a “separatist party” at the 5th National IPS Officers Conference in Chandigarh on 4 December. A video of his speech was widely shared on social media.

When asked about the continuing verbal duel between them, Varun Kumar said he had been targeted because they had come to know about his native place and caste. “Since I belong to an OBC caste of a smaller population, they are making such comments. While I can even tolerate the caste remarks, abuses against women cannot be tolerated, and he should apologise legally. I would fight for it even after retiring,” he told ThePrint, referring to social media comments by the NTK’s IT wing members against women who opposed Seeman.

Seeman told ThePrint he would deal with the defamation case legally. Although he refrained from discussing the matter in detail, he accused Varun Kumar of targeting his party under the influence of the DMK government.

“The ruling party aims to break my party, and he is their instrument,” said Seeman, questioning why he would single out one IPS officer considering he has disagreements with a wide spectrum of people, including politicians.

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Three years of cop-and-thief game

The dispute between the NTK and Varun Kumar began in December 2021, when the IPS officer—then the Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police—arrested the party’s spokesperson, Sattai Duraimurugan.

Duraimurugan had been accused of spreading false information about Foxconn, a major manufacturer of Apple devices, on social media, triggering large-scale protests in the region.

Although the conflict between the two has been simmering since 2021, things came to a head in June 2024 after Varun Kumar arrested Duraimurugan again. This time, Duraimurugan was accused of making derogatory remarks about former chief minister M. Karunanidhi during the Vikravandi constituency by-election campaign.

“While Duraimurugan made such comments in Villupuram and he is a native of Tenkasi, how come the Tiruchi SP could take action against him?” NTK spokesperson Se Packiarajan told ThePrint.

Explaining the sequence of events, Packiarajan alleged that the SP was instrumental in several audio leaks related to the NTK party.

“While Duraimurugan was arrested by the Tiruchi police, they had seized his mobile phone. But when the court denied remanding him in judicial custody and released him on bail, the police refused to return his mobile phone, stating that they needed to investigate it,” Packiarajan said.

Since Duraimurugan’s arrest in June last year, several audio leaks of conversations between Seeman and his party workers have surfaced, reportedly tarnishing the party’s image in public, claims Packiarajan.

However, Varun Kumar, a cybercrime expert, claimed that the audio leak inside the NTK party had existed since the party was started in 2016.

“Anybody could check online about the audio leaks, which have been available since 2016. By that time, I was not even SP,” Varun Kumar said. “Also, in the last four months, I have not arrested any NTK functionary in connection with any of the cases. But still, an audio of the NTK party has been leaked on social media,” the IPS officer said, adding that the party was using him as an excuse for not having proper leadership.

After the audio leak, the NTK party’s IT wing targeted Varun Kumar and his wife, Vanditha Pandey, who is also an IPS officer of the 2011 batch, on social media and made derogatory remarks against her in August last year. The attacks prompted widespread criticism.

In a post on ‘X’ back then, Varun Kumar said that they would not engage in social media conversations.

“It is not that we are scared or we could not handle them. We can very much face all of it, but it was consuming too much of our time and it was diverting our attention from professional issues. Hence, we took a break,” Varun told ThePrint.

Varun also said that his wife felt sorry for the women belonging to the NTK party.

“She did not mind being abused on social media, but she was concerned about the women in their party. When their party leader was making sexist comments in front of women cadres, what would be their state of mind?” Varun asked.

He said nothing more could be expected from a party that allegedly bases its ideology on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organisation that was involved in Sri Lanka’s civil war before it was defeated in 2009.

Director-turned-politician Seeman, widely recognised for his vocal advocacy for Sri Lankan Tamils, transformed his political movement Naam Tamilar Iyakkam into a formal party in 2010.

But instead of establishing a new entity, he revived the Naam Tamilar Katchi, originally founded by S.P. Adithanar in 1958, marking the beginning of his political journey.

Seeman’s fiery speeches on Tamil identity, land and language resonated strongly with the youth, becoming a rallying point in the lead-up to the 2016 assembly polls.

Who is Varun Kumar IPS?

A native of Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district, Varun Kumar is a 2011 batch IPS officer who secured the third rank at the all-India level in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam.

He did his schooling in Tiruchi district, where his father worked as an economics professor. Soon after completing school, Varun Kumar moved to Chennai to pursue a Bachelor of Dental Surgery. “After completing my college in 2007, I wanted to join any one of the uniform services. To wear the uniform was my dream,” he said.

While he was trying to join the uniform services, an interviewer during one of his exams suggested he pursue the UPSC exam for the civil services. He then began preparing for the civil services and in 2011, he cracked the UPSC exam.

“Being a national-level topper, I could have chosen anything in the UPSC. But, I chose IPS over others because only then could I wear the uniform,” he said.

After his training, Varun Kumar was posted as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in various places, including Aruppukottai in Virudhunagar district in Tamil Nadu. However, after his alleged ex-girlfriend filed a dowry harassment charge against him, he was suspended from the service in 2014.

The Greater Chennai police had even filed a case in 2014, and he surrendered before the police in April that year, after which he was sent to judicial custody at Puzhal prison. The suspension was lifted in November 2015, and in January 2016, Varun Kumar was posted as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in the state commando force. Since then, he has served as SP in various places, including Ramanathapuram, Tiruvallur and Trichy districts.

In 2018, the Madras High Court quashed the dowry case against him.

“At the time of joining the service, I told my senior that I wanted to make the police station accessible for even a common man, and people should approach the police without any fear,” Varun Kumar said. “I think I am achieving it, and I am always available for the people to work for them.”

(Edited by Sugita Katyal)

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