Court should have asked Govt: Pinarayi

The dead in the week-long political killings have all been cremated, the shops are beginning to get back to business...

The dead in the week-long political killings have all been cremated, the shops are beginning to get back to business, the mutilated are getting used to their fate—and the bombs go off only at rare intervels in the more remote parts. But the fear stalking Thalassery’s worst hit areas is still palpable, even when the main town areas put on a brave face under a huge police force busy ensuring that the place goes to sleep immediately after dusk, with the prohibitory orders in force.

As many as 29 abandoned bombs and about a dozen stick swords, is all that the cops — there are over 1,000 of them rushed here from all over — have so far managed to find and seize from the killing fields. This is, ironically, when the CPI(M) and RSS mobs, with the cops inanely firing in the air, were throwing dozens of lethal steel bombs at each other for a couple of days at street junctions in Katirur, Temple Gate, Vavachi Mukku, Vettuchal and elsewhere, and police sources admit that both sides have stockpiled enough of these to last a long time.

The sources say party offices, deserted home compounds, school premises and a lot of other places are traditional repositories of these lethal hoards, always kept handy. But Thalassery is state Home Minister and CPI(M) Central Committee member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s home constituency and he has told the cops that if they raid party offices, it should be done in a way that would not “disrupt the official work” going on in those.

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Meanwhile, in Thiruvananthapuram, CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, whose home base is Kannur, took a big swipe at the Kerala High Court after the court, underlining the prevailing circumstances, made some strong remarks in favour of calling in central security forces to put Kannur back on the rails.

The court, Pinarayi declared, ought to have first consulted the Government. “Courts should stop making comments based on what those who have the freedom to whisper in their ears advise. The High Court has started shouting whatever comes into its mouth. That would not behove any court,” he said.

Pinarayi went on to deny the High Court’s observation that the police in Kannur go by the list of accused that the political leadership hands it after the violent crimes. “This is an allegation that even our political opponents would want to make,” Pinarayi said, terming it as a direct incursion by the High Court into the state Government’s functioning.

Pinarayi alleged that Justice Ram Kumar, has openly exceeded his judicial limits by “asking to call in the military” to Kannur. Calling in central forces anywhere can never be a unilateral act, and the judge has committed a brazen misuse of his office, Pinarayi fumed.