People's Democracy

KERALA NEWSLETTER

Police Action Creates a Pool of Blood

N S Sajith

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, the capital city of Kerala, once again witnessed the creation of a pool of young blood as the police force unleashed yet another brutal action against the agitating students on June 18, 2012. Seven students are under critical condition.

The action was unleashed against activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) when they were in a protest march, demanding action against the Congress criminals who are involved in the killing of Anish Rajan, vice president of Idukki district unit of the SFI. 

This was the second police lathicharge within just three days.

On June 18, when the students had put up a blockade near the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, demanding the arrest of the criminals, the police --- armed with lathis, grenades and teargas shells --- dashed forward, pounced upon the agitating students, and started beating them up till many of them fell unconscious. Most of the students suffered head injuries. Some policemen beat the students up till their sticks broke.

It has been learnt that the police were given special orders by the higher-ups to handle the students harshly. A special torture team was also arranged for this brutal action. Hundreds of police men were deployed in the premises of the State Secretariat.

The attack started soon after the SFI state vice president A A Rahim made a address to the protesting students. The action was entirely unprovoked. Hearing the news of the police action, some leaders of the CPI(M) rushed out of the state assembly, reached the spot and demanded that the police force to stop the attack.

GOVERNOR DIRECTS 

CM TO TAKE ACTION 

ON June 16, 2012,  H R Bharadwaj, the governor of Kerala, has directed the chief minister Oommen Chandy to take appropriate action against the Muslim League legislator, P K Basheer, for his involvement in the dual killing of two brothers in Kuniyil, Malappuram distrtict. As reported earlier, Basheer was guilty of abetment of the crime by his speech.

The governor also conveyed the information about his directive to opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan, as a part of his reply on a memorandum submitted to him by LDF leaders on June 15, Friday. The memorandum had sought immediate intervention of the governor on the issue of the courtesy extended to P K Basheer by allowing him to enter the legislative assembly, which led to disruption of the house proceedings for a further three days. The memorandum also sought the suspension of P K Basheer from the state assembly. 

In his letter to the opposition leader, the governor said that he had sought the opinion of the chief minister in this issue.

Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, deputy leader and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and other LDF leaders had submitted the memorandum in the Raj Bhavan.

The opposition has been raising the issue of the Congress led UDF state government’s attempt to protect a culprit and its dillydallying in taking action against the latter. For last three days, the entire proceedings of the house were disrupted due to the protest on this issue. But the chief minister’s reaction in the house was that there was no need of any action against a person who was named in the First Information Report of a case. 

The incident of dual killing occurred on June 10 night. Prior to it, P K Basheer has made a public call to the criminals to kill the two brothers. The slain brothers, Abubacker and Aasad, were allegedly involved in the killing of League activist Athiq Rahman.

UDF WINS

NEYYATTINKARA

The Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF) has won the byelection to the Neyyattinkara assembly constituency. The Congress candidate R Selvaraj, who resigned from the CPI(M) three months ago, defeated the CPI(M)’s candidate F Lawrence by a margin of 6334 votes. Selvaraj had won the same seat as the CPI(M) candidate in the state assembly polls in 2011. After this result, the strength of UDF in the 140 member state assembly has gone up to 73.

After the delimitation, this constituency has become a stronghold of the UDF.

Selvaraj and Lawrence got 52,528 and 46,194 votes respectively, while the BJP candidate O Rajagopal, a former central minister, bagged 30,507 votes.

According to the CPI(M) state secretariat, the result showed that the vote base of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) was still intact. intact. In fact, even though the media and the UDF had unleashed an all-out attack against the CPI(M) during the last three months or so, the LDF has increased its vote share by more than 20,000 votes compared to the the last parliament election in 2009. One may recall that the UDF’s majority in this segment was around 17000 in the 2009 Lok Sabha election while it was about 8,000 in local body election. The UDF’s win is the product of misuse of governmental machinery, the CPI(M) statement added.

ONE STATE,

TWO JUSTICES 

Though the home affairs department of Kerala is unable to find time to be firm on criminals and petty thieves, it pays full attention to nabbing some CPI(M) leaders on the pretext of some distorted speech or references at a press conference. At the same time, the department turns a blind eye to offences committed by the Congress or League leaders.

Take the case of the speech of M M Mani, formerly of the CPI(M), which made waves in the media even though the party disowned the speech and took appropriate action against Mani. He was removed from the post of the party’s district secretary in Iddukki. But while the government has tightened the noose in regard to the cases Mani referred to, it has totally ignored a far more dangerous speech delivered on June 17 by a Congress leader who is a Lok Sabha member from Kannur constituency. Attending a conference of the Cooperative Bank employees affiliated to the Congress, Sudhakaran threatened that he is ready to commit any crime against the CPI(M). Nor did he hesitate in justifying the killing of Nalpadi Vasu, a CPI(M) worker, in Kannur in 1993. He roared that he would not shy away from killing some more CPI(M) workers. 

One recalls that in 1993, Nalpadi Vasu was killed by Sudhakaran’s gunmen, when the Congress leader himself ordered the latter to spray bullets on Vasu who was sitting before a shop in his village, Puliyangottu. Sudhakaran was then leading a Congress campaign march. After the barbarous killing, moreover, he proudly announced, “I have killed a CPI(M) worker.”

Recalling this very incident on June 17, Sudhakaran said, “The guns in the hands of my gunmen were not meant to shoot the crows. They are for killing. If I get one more chance to kill, I will do it without any hesitation.”

The selective amnesia of the rightwing media and the government is once again visible in relation to Sudhakaran’s latest pronouncement. Mani’s speech got global publicity as international media houses like the BBC too gave it wide coverage, apart from the Indian TV channels and newspapers. But all of them are now keeping mum on Sudhakaran. No editorial was written; no panel discussion was held by the so called political experts; no so called ‘Marxist ideologue’ has come up with an expert opinion.

Further, while the CPI(M) took action against Mani, the Congress has not showed any courage to act against Sudhakaran. The police has not filed any case, what to talk of digging up any old cases. This is the same police force which once lodged a case against P Jayarajan, CPI(M) district secretary in Kannur, in connection with a reference made at a press conference. 

This is nothing surprising as the same selective amnesia we have seen in the case of dual murder in Malappuram. No action has been taken against P K Basheer, a Muslim League MLA from Ernad constituency, who prompted his goons to kill two brothers in Kuniyil village near Areekode in Malappuram. It was in a public meeting that he asked some League workers to kill these two youths. But no action has been taken in this regard.