At least 20 persons, including four policemen, were injured when police baton charged a mob which attacked Dalit Human Rights Movement (DHRM) demonstrators at Thumpode in the Pallickal police station limits on Monday. The violence started at 11.40 a.m. when 200 DHRM activists, most of them from other parts of the district, assembled at the Thumpode junction to stage a march towards the local police station in protest against the arrest of their workers on the ‘foisted charge' of destroying crops of members of other communities.
They also demanded the police arrest those responsible for the recent attack on the houses of two Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe families in Madavoor village.
Soon, a large number of local people, cutting across political lines, gathered at the junction to counter the DHRM protestors. They blocked the 4-km road from Thumpode to Pallickal and prevented DHRM workers from marching towards the police station.
The crowd started throwing stones at the DHRM activists who retaliated in kind. Fourteen DHRM activists and an unknown number of local residents were injured in the stone-throwing. The injured were admitted to different hospitals in Attingal taluk.
A large police posse led by Deputy Superintend of Police, Attingal, K.E. Baiju, separated the warring groups and baton charged the local residents who persisted in attacking the DHRM men, despite the police intervention.
Subsequently, policemen, in anti-riot gear, escorted the DHRM men from Thumpode to Pallickal, where the activists staged a protest. The DHRM men courted arrested peacefully at 2 p.m.
Mr. Baiju said members of both groups had been booked on charges of rioting, unlawful assembly, attacking policemen on duty, and creating enmity between different groups of people, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Rajendran Unnithan, president of the Madavoor panchayat, said local residents and traders would observe a hartal in the area on Tuesday to protest against the ‘socially disruptive and militant activities' of the DHRM.
He said only four Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe families in the area supported the DHRM. The other families of the community had joined hands with the rest of the residents to protest against the DHRM's activities. He said the police action was pro-DHRM and directed solely against the local residents.
