The State police on Wednesday continued its two-day spell of mass arrests in response to Monday’s flash hartal.
So far, law enforcers have arrested 951 people in connection with what they view as a premeditated political act that put communities on edge and disrupted life in some measure. They have ruled out any terrorist hand behind the hartal. More arrests are in the offing.
The Statewide sweeps overwhelmingly targeted Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI) workers in North Kerala. The charges against the arrested included promoting religious enmity, attacking police officers, rioting and unlawful assembly. At least 251 people were in judicial custody. The SDPI has denied direct involvement. It has claimed that the impromptu protests were the physical manifestation of the groundswell of online anger over the attempt to shield those accused of the rape-murder of a girl child at Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir.
The police have debunked the SDPI's view. They said the organisation had thrown its weight behind the hartal. Its online mobilisers had directed the protests through WhatsApp groups. The hartal organisers appeared to know where to go and what to do.
Their strong-arm tactics had resulted in communally tense face-offs in many localities and injuring over 30 police officers. The organisers used the cover of a hitherto unknown organisation. They sat at the apex level of a network of WhatsApp groups. They relayed their orders to cadres through the groups that mimicked a martial pecking order with access to communication restricted by ranking.
Investigators said they had made some breakthrough in the case and had identified a few of the critical marshals who mustered cadres for direct action on the street. They were now the focus of a cyber police probe headed by the Inspector General of Police, Crime Branch, S. Sreejith.
The police action drew sharp criticism from the SDPI and the Welfare Party Kerala. Both alleged that the police had rounded up their cadres, most of them from the minority community, without evidence of any wrongdoing or observing due processes, with the clear intent of hurting their future. Those arrested were critics of the communally divisive policies of the Central government, they said.
SHRC directive
Meanwhile, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has urged the government to take stringent action against the strikers and said any complacent response would encourage others to act similarly. The BJP has also urged the police to bring to book those responsible for what it termed the undeclared bandh.
