The police will clamp prohibitory orders on the city for six days beginning Monday in view of the pronouncement of the verdict in the case related to the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T.P. Chandrasekharan on January 22.
Commissioner of Police, Kozhikode city, G. Sparjankumar will issue the orders under Section 78 (regulation to prevent violence) and Section 79 (regulation of public assemblies) of the Kerala Police Act. This was decided at a meeting chaired by Additional Director General of Police, north zone, N. Shankar Reddy here on Saturday.
The district police chiefs, Kozhikode rural and Kannur, would clamp the orders on the Vadakara, Nadapuram, and Thalassery subdivisions and in areas under the Payyannur police station limits.
Inspector-General of Police, Kannur range, Suresh Raj Purohit, Deputy Commissioner of Police K.B. Venugopal, and all Assistant Commissioners attached to the city police took part in the meeting.
Officers wanted the ban to be in force in the six circles, namely, Kasaba, Town, Cheruvannur, Nadakkavu, Medical College, and Chevayur, considering the political sensitivity of the case. The entire city would be covered, Mr. Sparjankumar said.
The Special Additional Sessions Court (Marad cases) at Eranhipalam, the trial court, was under the Nadakkavu police circle.
The district jail where the accused were housed was at Puthiyara, under the Kasaba circle.
The order prohibits the preparation, storage, or transport of destructive material, explosives, gunpowder, stones or other projectiles. It bans the exhibition of living persons or corpses or the preparation, exhibition, representation, distribution or dissemination of pictures, symbols, placards, printed matter, pamphlets, books, audio-video recordings, digital records, and posters which may inflame communal or religious passions or offend general standards of public morality or seriously affect public peace or endanger the security of the nation.
Public assemblies and procession would be regulated for maintenance of law and order on these days. The ban orders, if necessary, would be extended, Mr. Sparjankumar said.
Additional personnel drawn from the armed battalions would be deployed in the city. This would be done once their services at Sabarimala got over. Night patrolling had been strengthened. Vehicles were being checked at entry points to the city, he said.
The RMP leader was murdered by a seven-member gang allegedly hired by a section of leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI-M] at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012.
