Kerala CM lacks in legal knowledge, says Rights body

Rejecting the charge leveled by Kerala’s Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPI(M) that he had intervened in the case of the recent custodial murder of a youth, which has damaged the State police’s credibility, with political intentions, State Human Rights Commission’s acting chairman P Mohanadas on Wednesday said Pinarayi was perhaps ignorant of the law. 

“The CM is a person I respect very much. He could have made that statement because of his ignorance of law,” said Mohanadas in response to Pinarayi’s charge that his call for a CBI probe into the murder of Sreejith (26) in custody was politically motivated and that he should not have made such a statement while occupying the position of the rights panel chief.

On Wednesday, his party officially pledged total support for Pinarayi in the matter with State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan saying that it was not proper for the SHRC chief to talk like a political leader. “If he wants to act like this, he should resign from the post and join politics,” Kodiyeri said in Thiruvananthapuram.

The CM, who is under pressure to relinquish the Home port folio in the context of the custodial murder, and his party attacked Mohanadas after he said on Monday that the Kerala Police could not be expected to hold a fair probe in the case in which the accused were its own officials and therefore a Central agency should take up the investigation.

Stating that the commission had the authority to intervene in the issue of custodial murder, Mohanadas said he had the legal responsibility to tell the people about the human rights violation involved in the case. Mohanadas, who became SHRC chief during the rule of the former Congress-led UDF government, said he stood by his position that there should be a CBI probe.

Sreejith (26), who was taken into custody at midnight April 6 by three officials of the now-disbanded Rural Tiger Force under then Aluva (Rural) SP AV George from his house in connection with the suicide of a neighbour, died at a Kochi hospital on April 9 due to the grave internal injuries he had suffered during the torture at the police station at Varappuzha.

Four police officials including a Sub-Inspector have been arrested and six officials have been suspended from service over the incident. However, instead of booking him, George who is accused of sending his subordinates to take Sreejith into custody allegedly illegally, was transferred to a plum post. A special police team is probing the case presently.

The SHRC chief had drawn the ire of the Chief Minister and his party also by criticizing the transfer of George to the Police Academy, which had been interpreted as a step to protect him. “What I did was to point out that it was inappropriate to post an official accused of involvement in the murder in an institution where law-enforcers are moulded,” Mohanadas said.

Meanwhile, Sreejith’s mother Syamala came out in support of the rights commission chief by saying that Mohanadas’s interventions in the case of the murder of her son were fair and sincere from the very beginning. She alleged that the Government was opposing the demand for a CBI probe because of the involvement of the Left in the issue.

“Fifteen days have passed since my son was murdered in the custody of the Varappuzha police. Numerous political and social leaders came here in these 15 days to console us but the Chief Minister has not so far shown the magnanimity to visit us. Does he know how much pain his attitude has caused for us?” Syamala asked.

Sreejith’s 24-year-old widow Akhila has already approached the High Court seeking orders for a CBI probe into the murder of her husband, stating that the family was unhappy with the current investigation by a special team of the Kerala Police. “Let the court take a decision” was how DGP Loknath Behera said when asked about the call for a CBI investigation.