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Municipal chairperson, councillors arrested

By Our Staff Reporter

KANNUR MARCH 3. In a latest turn to the confrontation between the Kannur Municipal Council and the police here over advertisement barricades established by a jewellery firm on a road divider in the town, the municipal chairperson, T.K. Noorunnisa, and 27 other councillors, including the ruling UDF and the Opposition LDF members, were arrested this morning when they accompanied municipal workers to oversee the implementation of the Council's unanimous decision to remove the hoardings. The confrontation reached a state of showdown at around 8.30 a.m. when the councillors along with workers reached the spot to execute the Council's decision taken on Friday as the 48-hour deadline given by it to the jewellery firm to remove the barricades ended yesterday evening. Within these 48 hours, the town had witnessed an unedifying spectacle of the jewellery firm handing over to the police the controversial barricades fixed on the divider at the Fort Road and the latter converting them into `police property' and having the advertisement re-painted with some traffic awareness messages. The police detained the chairperson and the councillors at the police station for nearly nine hours. They were released at around 6 p.m. following a series of shuttle discussions initiated by political leaders. The CPI(M) MLA, T.K. Balan, the DCC president, Sunny Joseph, the Congress leader, K.P. Nooruddin, and the IUML district secretary, V.K. Abdul Khader Moulavi, had held talks with the SP, Manoj Abraham, and the chairperson for hammering out a settlement.

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