Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued to the police in Kerala’s political violence-torn Kannur district, which continued to bleed on Friday. Two more people, one each from the warring CPI(M) and BJP-RSS sides, were hacked to death in the morning, taking the toll since Wednesday to six, besides the six more murdered in the five previous weeks.Police sources said a waiting BJP-RSS mob had caught CPI(M) worker Anil Kumar early morning near his home at Panur, and killed him on the spot. A few hours later, a CPI(M) mob barged into the home of BJP-RSS worker Suresh Babu, hacking him to death.The CPI(M) has so far lost eight of its workers in the district in the current eruption of serial political killings, and the BJP-RSS, four. About a dozen more injured from either side are in various hospitals, some in a critical state.Despite a deployment of some 600 police personnel, including armed police rushed from the neighbouring districts, mobs roamed the villages of the worst affected Thalassery and Panur areas at will, hurling country bombs at each other at some street junctions while locals fled or shut themselves indoors. The police had to open fire in Thalassery, home constituency of CPI(M) leader and Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, to disperse an armed mob that threw bombs at the police, barely missing a DSP leading the patrol.The police, unable to do anything convincing so far to check the killings and maimings, have come in for serious criticism. Congress spokesperson M M Hassan has asked for the Home Minister’s resignation, KPCC chief Ramesh Chennithala has urged the Government to call in central forces immediately, while the BJP took out a protest march to the Raj Bhawan in Thiruvananthapuram demanding the removal of A Jungpanki, the ADGP leading the police in Kannur, and a CBI probe into the killings.DGP Raman Srivastava, who has rushed to Kannur, maintained that the police cannot be blamed. “You cannot expect the police to contain violence of this magnitude within 24 hours. Besides, most of it is happening in the more remote rural areas,” the DGP said, adding that the political leadership ought to take the lead to restrain their workers. Srivastava, however, asserted there was no need yet to call in central forces.While the DGP affirmed that the killings and attacks were pre-planned and not sporadic, the police have yet to make any significant seizure of arms stockpiled by the two sides and are now being taken out at will.
