The Hindu : LDF stages walkout over lathicharge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 17, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

LDF stages walkout over lathicharge

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM July 16. The Opposition LDF members walked out of the Assembly today to protest against the police lathicharge on AIYF activists in the State capital and in Kollam resulting in injuries to the CPI MLA, P.S. Supal, and several others.

Seeking adjournment of the proceedings to discuss the issue, the Opposition leaders alleged that the police had swung into action without any provocation and beaten up everybody in sight and destroyed the CPI district committee office in Kollam. They saw a pattern in the police action and asked the Government to take stringent action against the guilty.

The Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, however, took the position that the lathicharge was only a response to provocative behaviour by the AIYF workers who had hurled stones on the police personnel and tried to break the barricade erected near the Legislature Complex. He called for an end to violent political agitations which, he said, was something that the State could not afford. Unlike in the past, there were video recordings of every police action and the Opposition charges would fall flat if these were produced in any court of law, he added.

The Chief Minister said the AIYF workers in the capital were injured as they were chased by the police personnel when they tried to break the police cordon and force their way into the Assembly complex. He claimed that 19 police personnel, including the City Police Commissioner of Thiruvananthapuram, were injured in stone-throwing. The Museum police had registered cases against 500 persons in connection with the stir. At Kollam, the marchers had thrown stones at the Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court smashing windowpanes and injuring two policemen. Although the police chased them away, they regrouped to mount another attack. This forced the police to chase them away again. The police did not enter the CPI office in Kollam. Altogether, six police personnel were injured in Kollam, he said.

The Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, reminded the Chief Minister that the Government had shown some readiness to review its policy on self-financing professional college admissions and fees only because of the Opposition student and youth activists courted the lathi-blows and shed blood. Such agitations were part of democratic dissent and it was the Government policy of suppressing them using brute force that should change, he said. He denounced the lathicharge in the capital and in Kollam on Tuesday in strong terms and wanted to know how the police personnel could smash the photograph of such `a mature and great leader' as the late M.N. Govindan Nair kept at the CPI district committee office in Kollam.

C.K. Nanu (JD-S) and A.A. Aziz (RSP) also called upon the Government to review its policy of putting down popular agitations through violent means. They wanted to know how the police could have destroyed the furniture and photographs at the CPI district committee office without entering the premises.

Earlier, seeking leave for the adjournment motion, Mr. K. P. Rajendran (CPI) said the police had unleashed a reign of terror at Kollam and that AIYF activists were being beaten up even in jails. The Government, he said, should not think that it would be able to carry on with such measures.

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LDF stages walkout over lathicharge