Bengaluru: Kerala’s ruling Community Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, on Tuesday alleged that a demand by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to impose Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Kannur district was a ploy to target the state government using the army.
After Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker Choorakkadan Biju was murdered in Kannur on Friday, the Sangh and the BJP have called for imposing AFSPA in the district. They say CPM workers were involved in the murder of Biju, himself an accused in a previous case of murdering a CPM worker.
O. Rajagopal, the lone BJP legislator in the state assembly, on Saturday submitted a memorandum to governor P. Sathasivam, demanding Kannur be declared a disturbed area and AFSPA imposed. The same day, state BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan put up on social media a video he said was of CPM workers celebrating the murder.
On Monday, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan opposed the demand for AFSPA in the state assembly, saying the incident should be seen as an exception since the government is working to ensure peace in Kannur. Over 200 peace talks have been held in the region and so far two people (both CPM activists) have been arrested in connection with the murder, he said.
Vijayan also cast doubts on the veracity of the video, saying nobody has seen such a celebration, and that the local police has denied it ever happened. The police will investigate the claim and if found untrue, the state BJP president will be arrested, he warned.
Rajasekharan on Tuesday welcomed the probe, saying he is willing to be arrested if he has done something wrong. The BJP’s demand to impose AFSPA in Kannur will be taken up with Union skill development minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is expected to visit Biju’s house on Wednesday, he added.
Political murders are not new to Kannur. Both BJP-RSS and CPM have lost almost an equal number of their activists in the 69 political murders reported from the region in the last 16 years, as per RTI data obtained by 101reporters.com.
Around a year ago, CPM activist C.V. Dhanraj was murdered in Kannur. Two hours after the murder, one of the suspects in the case, C.K. Ramachandran, a BJP-RSS worker was hacked to death. Biju was 12th accused in the case, and was on bail. On Friday, Biju was on a motorcycle journey from Mangalore to Kannur along with another accused in the Dhanraj murder case, when he was bombed and hacked by masked assailants.
Biju’s killing disrupted the ongoing “peace talks” in Kannur. Since January, political leaders from both camps have been holding local level conciliatory meetings, putting a pause on the cycle of killing and counter-killing.