Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala has urged the government to take stern action to ensure that all the accused involved in the murder of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) worker Abdul Shukkoor at Keezhara here on February 20 are brought before law as the modus operandi of the killing was appalling and unheard of in the State.
Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday after visiting the house of the slain young IUML activist at the tension-hit Ariyil near Taliparamba, Mr. Chennithala said that Shukkoor had been murdered in a ‘barbaric’ way after he was hounded out of a house where he took refuge along with four others and subjected to a mock trial after getting their photographs verified by CPI(M) workers. The way the IUML workers had been murdered was unheard of even under the Taliban rule (in Afghanistan), he said adding that the protest by IUML workers against CPI(M) district secretary P. Jayarajan at Ariyil on February 20 should not have provoked CPI(M) workers to hatch a conspiracy to murder Shukkoor. The State government should conduct a detailed investigation into the murder which would shock any person with conscience.
Mr. Chennithala also said that he welcomed CPI(M) district secretary P. Jayarajan’s statement here on March 26 as the CPI(M) leader had ‘owned’ the role of party workers in the murder. The CPI(M) should now co-operate with the investigation to ensure that all those who had been identified as accused in the murder case be brought before the law. He also said that the CPI(M) district leadership’s portrayal of the murder as incident that had occurred during a clash between CPI(M) and IUML activists was far from true as there was no police case relating to such a clash, no report of injury suffered by any CPI(M) workers and no hospitalisation. CPI(M) workers in the list of accused produced before the court here included local party leaders including son of the CPI(M) leader M.V. Govindan, he added.
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The KPCC president said that the CPI(M) district leadership was showing unease over the murder case as it was stubbornly justifying the murder, instead of expelling the accused from the party as gesture of deterrence against any such attacks in future in the name of political rivalry. Instead of carrying out retaliation for the alleged attack on its leaders, they should have shown the maturity to restrain the party workers to ensure administration of justice. The murder also resembled the killing of Bharatiya Janata Party leader K.T. Jayakrishnan inside a school class room near Panur, he said adding that another IUML worker and a Congress activist had been murdered at the trouble-hit Pattuvam area near Taliparamba a few years ago.
The CPI(M) should change its ‘ruthless style’ of eliminating its political rivals, Mr. Chennithala said adding that the murder of Shukkoor and the killing of National Development Front worker Muhammad Fazal near Thalassery a couple of years ago, which is now being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the direction of the High Court, exposed the true face of the CPI(M). Now that the CBI had started questioning the local leaders of the CPI(M) in the Fazal murder case, the party unleashed a campaign painting the CBI as an agency of the Congress, the KPCC president said.