The simmering discontent in the Kerala unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) over Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s handling of the police department burst into the open once again after members of the force on Wednesday manhandled a mother who has been demanding an investigation into her son’s death.
Vijayan is a member of the CPI (M), which is part of the ruling Left Democratic Front alliance.
On Wednesday, the state police earned widespread criticism for the manner in which they treated KK Mahija, the mother of engineering student Jishnu Pranoy, whose body was found hanging under mysterious circumstances in his hostel room at the Nehru College of Engineering and Research in Thrissur in January. Pranjoy’s family alleged that he had committed suicide after being tortured by college officials for questioning the conduct of an examination. Claiming that the official investigation into the death had been inadequate, Mahija and her relatives tried to organise a protest in front of the Kerala Police Headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram.
However, a posse of police personnel blocked the protesters near the entrance of the complex, and Mahija fell down in the ensuing melee. She lay on the road for some time before being taken to a police van. Mahija complained that the police had hit her and dragged her along the road.
The incident put the government in the dock. Opposition parties accused the government of using the police to stifle protests. On Thursday, the United Democratic Front, Bharatiya Janata Party and Revolutionary Marxist Party observed a near-total state-wide dawn-to-dusk hartal to protest the incident.
Support for police
Despite a barrage of criticism from his own party as well as political opponents, Chief Minister Vijayan remained adamant and justified the police action. “The police have done their job,” he said. “People from outside tried to enter the Police Headquarters, and the police stopped them.”
But top CPI (M) leaders refused to buy Vijayan’s version.
Politiburo member MA Baby launched a scathing attack on the police. He said those who assaulted Mahija had not understood the Left Democratic Front government’s police policy. “Stern action should be taken against those who acted against the arrogant police personnel,” he said.
Baby noted: “Protest marches to police stations are very common in Kerala. If people can stage protest in front of a police station, they can do it in in front of the police headquarters too. It is wrong to argue that police headquarters should be a protest-free area.”
Veteran CPI (M) leader and former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan spoke to the Director General of Police Loknath Behra to express his anguish immediately after the incident, and offered all support to Mahija’s family.
Leaders of the Communist Party of India, the second-largest party in the Left Democratic Front coalition, indirectly took a dig at Vijayan for mishandling the police. “The rulers should control the police,” he told reporters at Thiruvananthapuram.
Left leaning activists too expressed their anguish over the incident.
Poet K Satchidanandan minced no words in his attack on Vijayan. “Has the Chief Minister become a liability for the CPI (M)?” he asked in a Facebook post.
Angry protests
The incident found an echo in the Parliament on Thursday when Congress MP, KC Venugopal, demanded that the House should condemn the incident. The statement angered CPI (M) members, who trooped into the well, forcing Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to adjourn the House for some time.
Vijayan’s justification of the police action runs contrary to previous positions taken by the CPI (M), which supported protesting mothers seeking justice from the Central government.
The communists had backed the agitations organised by Radhika Vemula, the mother of Rohith Vemula, the research scholar from Hyderabad Central University who committed suicide in January 2016, and Fatima Nafees, the mother of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Ahmad Najeeb, who has been missing since October.
The party was vocal in criticising police assaults on Radhika Vemula during a candle light vigil on February 24 and Nafees on November 7, 2016.
The mounting criticism seems to have forced Vijayan to back down. On Thursday, he declared that the government would stand with Mahija’s family.
Vijayan said that LDF government was committed to ensuring justice to the family. “The government had approved all the demands raised by Pranoy’s family,” he said at a rally in Malappuram on Thursday. “The government had appointed a public prosecutor and a committee to study the issues of self-financing colleges, as demanded by the family.”
