Around 15 people, including women activists and police personnel, sustained injuries when Kerala Students Union (KSU) activists clashed with the police outside the Secretariat on Thursday. The vicinity turned a battleground for over an hour with stones, sticks, slippers, lathis, and shields strewn around.
The activists marched to the Secretariat to pledge solidarity with the protesting Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) rank-holders and Youth Congress State president Shafi Parambil and vice president K.S. Sabarinadhan who have been observing a fast for the last five days.
Soon after the demonstration was inaugurated by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran, the KSU workers attempted to topple and climb over the barricades erected in front of the Secretariat gates. This prompted the police to use water cannons, but the agitators refused to disperse.
The situation escalated after the protesters charged at the police officers and threatened to attack the Cantonment Assistant Commissioner, paving way for the large police posse to lathicharge the activists. While the police had hitherto restrained from using forceful methods to quell demonstrations that surrounded the rank-holders’ protest, this move marked a shift in their riot-control tactic.
The lathicharge led to a fierce street fight as the KSU activists hurled stones, sticks, and slippers towards the police contingent. A police personnel was also rounded up by a group of protesters who manhandled him after he fell on the road. The clash occurred outside the North gate and near the rank-holders’ agitation venue where a group of women activists made a futile attempt to jump over the fence to enter the Secretariat premises.
Nine activists, including KSU state president K.M. Abhijith, vice president Sneha S. Nair, and State secretary Bahul Krishna, sustained head injuries. Four police personnel also were hospitalised.
The KSU has declared Statewide demonstrations on Friday in protest against the alleged police excesses on the agitators. They claimed that the women activists were manhandled and by male police officers, who also hurled abuses at them. They also alleged that some of the police personnel had their name plates removed from their uniform to prevent identification.
Following the clash, the Secretariat and its vicinity turned into a fortress with the police strengthening security in anticipation of further demonstrations.
Meanwhile, the ongoing demonstration by the last-grade servants’ post rank-holders completed 24 days, while that by the civil police officers job aspirants will enter its 15th day on Friday.
A group of National Games medal-winning sportspersons, who have also been agitating in the area for jobs that had been assured to them by the government, protested with the men tonsuring their heads and the women cutting their hair. Yet another bunch of job aspirants, who had appeared for a PSC test for the KSRTC mechanic grade II posts six years ago, has also began to agitate outside the Secretariat.