A special investigation team has been constituted to investigate the incident in which unidentified miscreants set ablaze the P. Krishna Pillai memorial in Alappuzha, according to Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.
He was speaking to media persons on the sidelines of a function here on Thursday. Mr. Radhakrishnan said the team would be led by K. Padmakumar, Inspector General of Police, Ernakulam Range and will include the Alappuzha and Kottayam Superintendents of Police. Terming the incident as ‘unfortunate’, Mr. Radhakrishnan said P. Krishna Pillai was not just the leader of a particular organisation, but one who had contributed immensely towards the renaissance movement in Kerala.
“The damage to a memorial established in his name was a dent to the cultural integrity of the State. I am deeply pained by the development.
An attempt to damage the memorial where P. Krishna Pillai had breathed his last cannot be tolerated”.
“I do not wish to comment on the reasons behind the incident. However, all possible factors will be brought within the ambit of the probe,” he added.
Verbal duel
Unidentified miscreants set ablaze the memorial of P. Krishna Pillai in Alappuzha in the early hours of Thursday.
The incident also triggered a verbal duel between Left and Congress leaders. The Left parties also called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the district on Friday.
Left leaders flay attack
Special Correspondent writes from Thiruvananthapuram: Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI State secretary Pannian Ravindran, and other prominent Left leaders have condemned the gutting of the P. Krishna Pillai memorial at Muhamma in Alappuzha during the early hours of Thursday.
Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Vijayan called upon party workers to register their protest against the attack in strong terms. What was witnessed at Alappuzha was the most heinous provocation from the Congress.
Those who had set ablaze the memorial and vandalised his bust probably knew only that he was a Communist leader.
He was much more than that. He was a leader of the freedom movement and had played a major part in the struggle on the Kozhikode beach.
Congress workers, he said, had been indulging in attacks on CPI(M) offices in the Charummood, Aroor, Kuttanad, and Haripad areas.
They had also attacked buses operated by cooperatives linked to the CPI(M). Party workers had not got provoked by these attacks. They must observe restraint in the present instance as well and should not try to retaliate in the same coin, Mr. Vijayan said.
The CPI State secretary said in a statement that the attack on the memorial appeared to be part of a conspiracy.
The police should immediately take steps to catch the culprits. All those who believed in democratic values should rise in protest against the attack, Mr. Ravindran added.
In separate statements, RSP State secretary A.A. Aziz and Communist Marxist Party (CMP) leader G. Sugunan also came down heavily on the attack on the memorial.
