An audio clip of a telephone squabble between Kalamassery sub-inspector Amruth Rangan and CPI(M) Kalamassery area committee secretary V.A. Zakir Hussain over the former’s alleged mistreatment of Students Federation of India (SFI) district president Amal Jose has put the party on the back foot, with the clip going viral in social media on Wednesday.
The five-minute-long clip has Mr. Hussain accusing the officer of having no positive image among the public and political workers.
He takes exception to the officer’s alleged misbehaviour with the SFI leader during a skirmish between two sections of students on the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) campus on Tuesday.
Mr. Rangan denied the accusations and argued that he had only removed the SFI leader from the scene and dropped him at the student amenity centre to defuse the tension.
At one point, Mr. Hussain is heard asking the officer to understand the politics in Kalamassery to which Mr. Rangan said the political colour of the place hardly matters to him.
Mr. Hussain later told The Hindu that he had not threatened the officer with transfer but had been very polite with him. “He leaked the audio clip of the conversation, which is inappropriate for a police officer to do. He might be recording all his telephone conversations, including those with his senior officers,” said Mr. Hussain, who was reinstated by the party as its Kalamassery area secretary recently after an internal inquiry gave him a clean chit over an allegation that he had threatened a local businessman.
CPI(M) district secretary C.N. Mohanan said the party would petition the Chief Minister, who holds the Home portfolio, against the police officer. “While we have nothing against anyone’s political affiliation, a police officer shouldn’t act based on that,” Mr. Mohanan said, accusing the officer of being a worker of a students’ outfit antithetical to SFI while in college.
A confrontation between SFI activists and participants of an Onam procession taken out by the inmates of Sahara hostel led to the tension. A participant had sustained a head injury in the fracas.
Mr. Hussain said that the Onam procession was scheduled to match the timing of the victory procession of SFI following their win in the Cusat union election and that the SFI activists were pelted with stones by the other side.
The police, however, said that the Onam procession was taken out only after the SFI’s procession got over and that the confrontation happened when the hostellers were returning. “We are not sure who caused the provocation. There is a running feud between SFI and the hostellers since the former lost the election for the hostel administration earlier this year,” police sources said.
The police have registered a case against five SFI activists under IPC Section 324 (Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) in connection with the alleged assault.
