The body of Maoist Ajitha who was killed in a police shoot-out in the Agali forest recently was cremated in a public crematorium at Kottappadi, near Guruvayur, on Thursday under tight security.
The three-week-old body, which had been kept at the mortuary of Thrissur Government Medical College Hospital, was in a highly decomposed state. Human rights activists, including Mundur Ravunny, Ajithan, Shina and Parthipan, received the body by 10 a.m. They raised slogans and paid homage to the slain Maoist.
The body was taken to Kottappady in a private ambulance arranged by the police. It was accompanied by six police vehicles. The Sholayur police, Thunderbolt commandos, and Agali police were present.
Though the police initially claimed that it was body of Rema of Tamil Nadu, it was later found that the deceased was Ajitha, daughter of Swarna Meri of Koodamkulam. As Ajitha’s relatives refused to receive the body, it was decided to cremate it in Thrissur itself. Ajitha’s mother told the police that she did not want to see her daughter’s body.
According to her relatives, Ajitha, who left home in 2013 for studying journalism and later LLB, never returned home. Later she married her classmate.
Meanwhile, human rights activists protested against the decision to cremate the body of Ajitha. “The body should have been buried. Cremation of the body has ruled out the possibility of a re-postmortem,” said Shina, a Maoist sympathiser.
