The police top brass here is contemplating various measures for the speedy trial of cases of violence including attacks on police personnel and police stations in the district and neighbouring areas following the arrest of Communist Party of India (Marxist) district secretary P. Jayarajan in the Abdul Shukkoor murder case recently.
District Superintendent of Police Rahul R. Nair has submitted through proper channels a proposal seeking the setting up of a special court for the trial of the Shukkoor murder case and the cases of large-scale violence, unleashed mostly against police stations, personnel and their residences as also against public property in the wake of Mr. Jayarajan’s arrest on August 1. Top police officers are worried about the possibility of withdrawal of cases after the charge sheets are filed. They want to forestall any situation that may at a later stage lead to political intervention and subsequent withdrawal of the cases.
As police officers and personnel are being marked and targeted, the morale of the police personnel in the region is down, highly placed police officers here say adding that only a speedy trial can ensure conviction of the accused and avert withdrawal of cases.
Withdrawal of similar cases involving political workers is nothing new in the region. A total of 160 cases registered in police stations in the northern range have been withdrawn since 2006, as many as 121 of them during the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s term and 39 by the present United Democratic Front (UDF) government, the police sources said adding that in Kasaragod, 25 such cases have been withdrawn by the present government.
‘Not a healthy trend’
“Withdrawal of cases is not a healthy trend and there is no use of submitting charge sheets and later withdrawing the cases as it will only accelerate the erosion of the morale of the police,” says a top police officer on condition of anonymity. Hence the police want mechanisms for speedy trial of cases and early conviction, he adds.
The enormity of the incidents of recent violence and the number of people identified as accused are factors that the police want the government to reckon with. In Kannur district alone, nearly 870 people have been arrested and sent to jail as remand prisoners in connection with the cases of violence. Over 1,800 people have been identified as accused.
The police have started the process of documenting the people who have been involved in the incidents of recent violence in the region, top police sources said. This will allow the police to identify history-sheeters, they said adding that since some of the accused are working in cooperative institutions and government departments, the police would take follow-up actions to ensure departmental actions against the culprits. The police can also invoke Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Code that allows the executive magistrate to order a person who is feared to commit breach of peace to execute a bond for keeping peace for a specified period not exceeding one year. Efforts are also under way to get passports of the accused impounded, the police officers said.
