Should we use article "the" before pronouns. (he, she, them, it etc.)

Question

I was reading news and I suddenly read something which did not sound natural to me. I was sure that I had already read the same thing (article the before pronouns) before as well somewhere, but this time I want to confirm it. My question is, can we use article the before pronouns? (he, she, them, it etc.)

I read this on a news website:

The change of stand on the part of the Campa Cola residents, who had been resisting the authorities since Friday, came after meeting chief minister Prithviraj Chavan. He asked the them to comply with the law.

Answer 1

Generally speaking, no. A defining trait of this class of pronoun is that they can't be modified by determiners. This is one of the main traits that distinguishes them from regular nouns.

Your example has a typo. They wrote the them, but it appears they simply meant to write them. Perhaps they started by writing a phrase such as the residents, then decided to replace it with them, but failed to delete the whole thing.