An all-party peace conference convened by District Collector Mir Mohammed Ali decided to strengthen grassroots-level peace initiatives in the district to avert incidents of political violence.
Briefing reporters after the meeting ended on Monday night, the Collector said village-level peace committees with local police Sub Inspector as convener and Village Officer as joint convener would be constituted. The committee having representation of local political parties would intervene to settle local level disputes between rival political party workers, he said.
It was also decided at the meeting to constitute a panel comprising representatives of political parties and officials that would visit the houses of victims of political violence in different parts of the district. Party leaderships were urged to announce their representatives in the panel in a week, he said. Mr. Ali also said that if serious incidents of violence occurred next time, leaders of the rival parties whose workers were involved in clashes would meet at the Collector’s chamber of camp office on the same day or in the morning of the succeeding day to discuss and settle issues so as to check any further escalation of violence, he said.
District Police Chief K. Sanjay Kumar, who was also present at the meeting, said that there was no interference from political parties to influence investigation into incidents of violence. As the police wanted to arrest only the real culprits involved in the incidents of violence, some delay in making arrests was unavoidable, he said adding that the police would nab all the accused. He also said that the police would take seriously the speeches of rival party leaders that that could be viewed as direct or indirect incitement. The DPC also said that action would also be taken against incitement through social media.
Leaders of various political parties attended the meeting. Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders K.P. Sahadevan and O.V. Narayanan, Bharatiya Janata Party district president P. Sathyaprakash, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Valsan Thillankery, Congress leaders Martin George were among those present at the peace meeting held in the evening on Monday as part of the initiative to restore peace in parts of the district that recently witnessed incidents of political violence including murders.
The closed-door meeting in which only representatives of political parties and officials were allowed to attend began at 5 p.m. and continued till 8 p.m. Despite speculation that the BJP and RSS leadership might abstain from the peace meeting, they attended. The absence of district secretary of the CPI(M) P. Jayarajan or other top district-level leaders of the party did not go unnoticed. The sources said that Mr. Thillankery said at the beginning of the meeting that though he did not consider the absence of the top district leaders of the CPI(M) as deliberate abstention, the district administration should organise the peace meeting on a date that would be convenient for the CPI(M) leadership.
