People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 22
June 03, 2012
|
Vol. XXXVI
No. 22 June 03, 2012 |
KERALA
NEWSLETTER UDF Govt and
Corporate Media Combine to
Target CPI(M) N FOR the last three weeks, the print and visual
media in Kerala have been
on a special ‘news’ mission. They have deputed ‘special’
journalists for
coverage. Newspapers are devoting special pages and
channels have special slots
everyday apart from the lead stories for coverage of this
‘news’. Do not get confused
that the media in Kerala has become sensitive on price
rise issue or the recent
petrol price hike or corruption or the resurgent farmer
suicides in the state.
You would be mistaken if you assume that this special
coverage relates to the recent
CAG report on Coal Gate, which leaves far behind the Rs
1.75 lakh 2G spectrum
scam. These issues are not at all bothering them. For the
mainstream media in
Kerala, the tragic killing of former CPI(M) leader T P
Chandrasekharan is
foremost in their agenda now. They are using this
unfortunate incident to wage
an all-out attack on CPI(M) and the Left movement in the
state. It is conducting
a parallel ‘investigation and trial’ in order to incite
public opinion against
the Party. Though the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat
and Kerala state secretary
Pinaryi Vijayan have already emphatically stated that it
is not the policy of the
CPI(M) to physically eliminate those who have
disagreements with it. Vijayan
has asserted that the Party has not endeavoured to murder anyone who had left
the Party for political-organisational
reasons. But the media is bent on taking an active
‘combing operation’ role to
paint the CPI(M) workers as ‘accused’ in this case and
consequently drive the public
conscience against the Party. The police officers, who are
notorious for their
allegiance to the ruling Congress party, are continuously
leaking ‘stories’ about
their interrogation of the arrested CPI(M) workers and the
media is publishing the
same as ‘confessional statements’. The pattern is like this. First stories are planted
in the media about
persons who are connected to CPI(M) as having a hand in
the killing. This is to
create an ambience for the police actions which invariably
follow in the form
of arrests and torture of those arrested. So far a series
of such arrests have
been made. Even third degree torture methods were used by
the police on the
arrested CPI(M) leaders. CPI(M) Onchiyam area secretary
and Non Gazetted Officers
Association’s former general secretary C H Asokan and
various area committee
members are presently under police custody. This was made
known by the arrested
persons to CPI(M) state secretariat member and former
industries minister
Elamaram Kareem and CPI(M) MLA K K Lathika when they
visited the sub jail in
Vadakara. Kareem said that the torture was similar to that of
the victims of
Emergency in the 1970s. “Padayamkandi Raveendran, a member
of CPI(M) Onchiyam area
committee showed us his bruised body. His ears and face
were discolored and his
fingers were battered due to the torture of the police,”
said Kareem. They were
even denied medicines. The brutal torture was made by the
members of special
investigation team to get the confessional statements to
augment the script
made by the political bosses. Raveendran had also revealed
to the CPI(M)
leaders that the story cooked up by the police and media
about him is utterly
malicious. On the day of Raveendran’s arrest, the media
flashed that he had
pointed out Chandrasekharan to the criminals who killed
the latter. Raveendran
had informed that he has not given any statement to this
effect to the police,
Kareem added. In the meanwhile, C H Asokan, former general
secretary of Non Gazetted
Officers Association, the largest organisation of
government employees in
Kerala, has submitted bail application in the state High
Court. Asokan, who was
in judicial custody for a few days, submitted to the court
that an industrialist
who wanted to establish a water bottling plant in Vadakara
is behind the murder
of Chandrasekharan. A strike against the plant led by
Chandrasekharan had
resulted in personal vendetta. The industrialist has close
contacts with the Congress
leaders in the state. The arrest of CPI(M) workers is part
of a malicious attempt
to tarnish the image of CPI(M) in this area, he stated. MASSIVE PROTESTS CPI(M) The district committee has also decided to file a
writ in the state High
Court against the parallel media trial which is nothing
but contempt of court.
Party district secretary T P Ramkrishnan will file the
writ citing the bogus
reports on interrogation and leaking of news by the
police. According to a
verdict of High Court dated December 22, 2010, making news
reports out of
confessional statements would amount to contempt of court.
The police should
confine to submit the details of interrogation only in the
court. Leaking of
the details is punishable according the verdict. Even recently, on March 18, 2012, Congress goons
brutally murdered 23
year old Aneesh Rajan who was vice president of SFI Idukki
district committee. He
was killed in Nedungandam, his native place. The Congress
workers had unleashed
vandalism and attacks against Tamil minority workers
during the controversy
over Mullaperiyar dam issue. The Tamil workers are
activists of the CITU. Several
women workers were targeted. Aneesh Rajan was on his way
to tea estates to see
the workers. The local Congress leaders pounced on him and
brutally killed. Neither
the police nor the ‘vigilant’ media have shown any
interest to book the Congress
leaders who perpetrated the dastardly crime.
Accompanying the media witch hunt and police atrocities,
there have been many
physical attacks on the houses of the CPI(M) workers and
Party offices in
Onchiyam area. Miscreants from Congress, Muslim League
along with Revolutionary
Marxist Party workers have unleashed attacks on the CPI(M)
workers with police
remaining as mere spectators. 
