The incidents of arson and rioting in the hill regions in the district on Friday have prompted the Home Department to revive a three-year-old proposal to set up a police station at Adivaram, bordering Kozhikode and Wayanad districts.
Over 50 persons, including police personnel, were injured and property valued at crores of rupees was damaged in the violent incidents that marked the protest against the K. Kasturirangan panel recommendations for ecologically sensitive areas.
At present, the Thamarassery police station covers the Thamarassery-Wayanad Ghat section till Adivaram on the Kozhikode-Kollegal National Highway, almost 22 km from Thamarassery. This was cited as one of the reasons why the rioters trapped the police contingent on the highway from both sides. More than a year ago, a police outpost was set up at Adivaram. However, the police team comprising 11 personnel and 10 Home Guards are deployed round the clock to prevent snarls in the movement of vehicles.
A proposal to set up a police station at Adivaram was mooted in 2010-11 during the flare-up in Nadapuram and Vadakara regions. It was made in connection with a move to establish four new police stations in Kozhikode rural for effective policing in the communally and politically sensitive regions.
“Now the department is seriously considering the proposal in the wake of the incidents,” Minister for Home Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, told The Hindu on Sunday.
Kozhikode rural has three police sub-divisions, Vadakara, Thamarassery and the recently established Nadapuram. However, the Thamarassery division functioned with limited resources. The Thamarasery, Thiruvambady, and Kodencherry police stations under the Thamarassery circle have 50 and 35 personnel each respectively.
Incidentally, the Kozhikode rural police district recorded the highest number of rioting cases in the State in the past four years.
As many as 997 cases of rioting were reported in the rural belt last year. Most of these cases were reported from Vadakara and Nadapuram sub-divisions, especially after the killing of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan on May 4, 2012.
“The Thamarassery sub-division was relatively calm and residents are peace-loving. But lately there has been a spurt in the activity of fundamentalist outfits on the highways. Their activity needs to be checked.
The intelligence network also has to be strengthened. The failure caught the police napping on Friday afternoon,” an officer said.
The Home Department believes that the rural regions in the district are politically and communally sensitive.
The violence in the name of the protest against the Kasturirangan panel report could have been masterminded by illegal sand-miners along with the outfits, he said.
