Speculation was rife on Wednesday that the CPI(M) had asked the party member accused of illegally giving up his grandchild for adoption to stay from organisational activities until further notice.
A party insider said the CPI(M)’s purported move could be the precursor of further disciplinary action against the party member.
Criticism was rife in the CPI(M) that the influential local committee member from a storied Communist family had brought infamy to the party.
His daughter, an SFI activist, had accused her father of giving up her child born out of wedlock for adoption without her consent. She later married the child’s biological father, a party member himself. Both parents had moved from pillar to post in the Government and CPI(M) to trace their “disappeared” infant.
The couple had squarely blamed the woman’s father and his “facilitators” in the CWC, local police, and the CPI(M) for the crime. The Government and the party had no choice but to distance themselves from the party member in the face of the scandal.
The State police have now registered a case of conspiracy, kidnapping, and violation of the provisions of the JJ Act against the woman’s parents and siblings.
She had told the police that her family had spirited the child away from her when she was convalescing after a “forced” C-section in a private hospital in the suburbs.
The woman stated to law enforcers that her family wanted to protect its “honour”, given that she had conceived the baby out of wedlock and the child’s father was of a “lower” caste.
The UDF had put the Government in the defence in the Assembly on Tuesday by highlighting what it described as a “CPI(M)-orchestrated honour crime”.
It said the CPI(M), CWC, police, and Government had abetted the crime. The agencies had acted as an extra-legal moral police force to save the “honour” of a party member.
The Opposition pointed out that Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat’s intervention to restore the child to its biological parents had failed despite her appeal to the Chief Minister’s Office. They called it a capital crime against society.
The CPI(M) State committee was likely to discuss the matter and decide on further action. For now, the CPI(M) has publicly rallied behind the mother. The Government has moved the court to nullify the adoption and return the child to the mother.
