Police terror at the behest of CPM

KOZHIKODE: The ideological fight in the CPM over the ‘rightist deviation’ in the party is learnt to be one of the reasons behind the police’s high-handedness against human rights activists in the name of Naxal hunt.

Those who are close to Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan inside and outside the party are upset over the increasing isolation of their leader and his inability to oppose the forces of capitalism which control the party.

There are indications that a few in the SFI and the CPM are getting closer to outfits whom the party labels as ‘left extremists’. This link may get stronger if VS is completely marginalised after the Kottayam meet of the party.

The students union of the Guruvayurappan College here invited CPI-ML central secretary K.N. Ramachandran to inaugurate a seminar recently, shocking the SFI leadership.

The VS loyalists at the Government College, Madappally, openly challenged the official faction of the SFI with the behind-the-curtain support from the Kerala Vidyarthi Sanghatana, the student wing of the CPI-ML.

The official faction of the CPM is aware of the possible danger of the disgruntled elements in the party forming a common platform, joining hands with the ‘left extremists’.

There are many common areas between the pro-VS forums like the Adhinivesha Prathirodha Samithi, Padom Prathikarana Vedi andthe ‘left extremists’ who take aggressive stand on issues like ADB loan. In fact, CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan himself had branded the pro-VS group as ‘left adventurists’.

It is suspected that the CPM is using the police to create a terror and to break the possibility of an alignment force against the party.

Such a possibility could be nipped in the bud by branding these forces as Maoists and creating a confusion among those who are willing to co-operate with the group.

The arbitrary police actions following the arrest of People’s March editor Govindan Kutty point to this possibility.

Many in the police force believe that the attempt to arrest the lawyers and human rights activists who went to visit Govindan Kutty inside the Viyyur Central Jail was an unwarranted move.

To make matters worse, police picked up women and children from a house at Kalamassery on Thursday to ‘verify’ their identity at unearthly hour.

The team from Nandigram which was picked up by the police had been staying in Kerala for the past two weeks. There were more policemen than public at the programmes organised by them. The police had collected information about the persons from Nandigram much before they were taken to the police station.

All these raise suspicion that the police are deliberately creating an atmosphere of terror at the behest of CPM.