CPM justifies killing of Kerala BJP man

Even as protest is intensifying across Kerala against the continuing political violence in State’s Kannur region, the CPI(M) leadership has embarked on a campaign to downplay the killing of an RSS-BJP worker in New Mahe, Kannur last week immediately after a local CPI(M) leader was hacked to death in nearby Mahe enclave of Puducherry.

The Marxist efforts to find justification for the killing of RSS-BJP worker Shamej Parambath, an autorickshaw driver, had started last Friday with CPI(M) central committee member and Kerala’s Law Minister AK Balan stating that the abominable act was the result of the ‘natural’ emotional response of partymen to the murder of a party leader.

The latest such justification for Shamej’s murder by a suspected CPI(M) killer gang has come from Politbureau member MA Baby, according to whom the two murders ‘could not be weighed in the same balance’. Earlier, party central committee member and Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac and CPI(M)’s Industries Minister AC Moideen also had justified the killing.

‘Emotional response is natural when a popular leader is killed brutally. This (murder of Shamej) should be seen in that light,’ Baby told the media. ‘In such a situation, how can you weigh both the incidents in the same balance? How can one find similarities between the sheep and the wolf?’ the CPI(M) Politbureau member said.

Shamej (36) was hacked to death by a suspected Marxist killer gang in New Mahe in Kannur district on the night of May 7 while he was returning home in his autorikshaw, within less than an hour of the killing of CPI(M)’s local committee secretary Kannipoyil Babu (45) by a gang near his house at Palloor in Mahe, an enclave of Puducherry bordering Kannur district.

Also, the failure of Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a native of Kannur district, to call on the family of Shamej on Saturday night when he had visited the mother, widow and children of Babu is being interpreted as an indirect bid to justify the killing of the RSS-BJP worker. Shamej’s house is just two and a half kilometers away from that of Babu.

On Friday, Minister Balan had tried to justify the killing of Shamej by saying, ‘Our workers had come under attack and it is normal (for them) to retaliate as an act of self-defence.’ Stating that Babu’s murder was preplanned, Balan said that the killing of Shamej should be seen as such an incident and that linking that to the political violence in Kannur was unwarranted.

Minister and central committee member Thomas Isaac, considered as one of the most reasonable faces of the CPI(M) and party-led LDF Government, also justified the killing of Shamej by suspected Marxists. ‘(Shamej’s killing) was the result of a natural and momentary reaction to the murder of the CPI(M) leader,’ he said.

Refusing to find fault with the killers of the RSS-BJP worker, Isaac said that the difference between the two incidents was that while Babu’s killing was a planned act of violence, there was no plot behind the murder of Shamej. On Saturday itself, Industries Minister Moideen had justified the BJP worker’s killing by defending Balan’s statement on it.

Meanwhile, the Puducherry Police have arrested three BJP workers — Jerin Suresh of Panur, PK Sarath of Panthakkal and PK Nijesh of Chokli, all from Kannur district — in connection with the murder of Babu, CPI(M)’s former councilor of Mahe Municipality. A local court remanded all the three in judicial remand for 14 days.

The police had taken several BJP-RSS workers into custody on Saturday and Sunday following which intense protest was staged in front of the Pallur police station in Mahe in which hundreds of activists participated. The police had taken Jerin on Saturday night when he was to get married on Sunday. Six people were still in police custody on Monday.