IANS

Chennai, Sep 8: As Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday began a three-day tour of Tamil Nadu aimed at revitalising the party, the gun of a security personnel went off accidentally, killing a woman and giving anxious moments to the police.

The woman was shot as the gun of a security personnel posted at Madurai Corporation went off. Gandhi is set to visit Madurai later in the day. The incident also created tension among Congress workers.

From Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, Gandhi flew into Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu where he was accorded a grand welcome by party members.

He will address members of the Congress youth wing from the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha constituency and also interact with young fishermen.

Security is tight along the route that Gandhi will be taking from Nagercoil.

He is scheduled to reach Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar to address the party's youth wing members and then travel to Madurai to meet students of the Madurai Kamaraj University. He will also address a conference of people from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Students of Madurai Law College are set to hold protests against Gandhi's visit over the Congress party's stand on Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.

Gandhi had visited Tamil Nadu during parliamentary elections this year. He campaigned in Sivaganga and Tiruchirapalli constituencies.

The Congress headquarters in Chennai is bustling with police personnel because of Gandhi's visit. Around 50 cameras are being used to watch visitors. Gandhi will attend a party meeting here Wednesday evening.

It was near Chennai that Rahul Gandhi's father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in May 1991.

And before the Tamil Tigers were crushed in May 2009, media sympathetic to the rebels accused Rahul Gandhi's mother Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president, of turning a blind eye to Tamil suffering in Sri Lanka.