Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday posted on his Facebook page the steps taken by the LDF government to help the family of Jishnu Pranoy, an engineering student who recently died under mysterious circumstances. He was responding to the complaint by Jishnu’s mother that the Chief Minister had ignored her family after the student’s death. Jishnu was found hanging at the hostel of Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre at Pampady, Thrissur.
The steps taken included a Cabinet decision to pay ₹10 lakh as solatium on the fifth day of Jishnu’s death, Mr. Vijayan said.
In an open letter, Mahija Ashokan, Jishnu’s mother, said many political leaders had visited the family in the 23 days since his death. But the Chief Minister, who had been to Kannur and Kozhikode several times during the period, did not bother to come over to console the family or contact them over phone.
She said Jishnu had been an active worker of the SFI (students’ wing of the CPI (M)) and admired Mr. Vijayan. “It is distressing that the Chief Minister did not visit us or call us. There was no condolence message on his Facebook page even,” the letter said.
In the letter, Ms. Ashokan also alleged that the probe team and the doctors who did the post-mortem examination were trying to sabotage the case.
However, the Chief Minister said that the State Police Chief (SPC) had been asked to give a report based on the complaints raised by Jishnu’s family. Minister for Excise and Labour T.P. Ramakrishan had handed over the cheque to the family.
The SPC would give a reply to the complainant after getting the probe report. In this connection, a reply had been forwarded to the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, he said.
