The ruling CPI(M) in Kerala has started the process of consolidating its numero uno position in the State politics following the directive by the all-India leadership of the party to plug the loopholes that led to its drubbing in the recent Lok Sabha election. The CPI(M), rated as the world’s largest Marxist organization by its national leader Sitaram Yechury, could win just one seat out of the 15 seats it contested while its allies, the CPI and the Kerala Congress(M) drew a blank.
As part of the mission to regain its status, the party decided to get three of its “official” assassins undergoing rigorous life term in Kannur Central Jail freed at the earliest though the trio have been sentenced to life term with no provision of parole for the next 20 years. The grapevine is that the Marxists are trying to finish off some top Sangh Parivar leaders in the State in order to regain the trust of Muslims and Christians in the State.
TK Rajeesh, Mohammed Shaffi and Anna Sijith, veteran assassins with number of “successful operations” to their credit were the ones proposed by the party leadership to be freed of all charges of murder. This initiative is a follow up to the Azadi Ka Amrith Mahotsav and envisaged the release of life term convicts who have behaved well in the prisons.
On 13 June, the Kannur Prison Superintendent initiated the move to get the approval of the governor for the release of the trio. But following a media leak, the government made a hasty retreat and hushed up the entire plan. M B Rajesh , the Minister for Excise, told the Assembly that it was a faux pas by the jail department and has been nixed by the government. What went unasked was whether the officials of jail department, a sensitive branch, would write a letter seeking the release of three dreaded criminals without prodding by the government.
The three, along with other party activists were sentenced by the Kerala High Court for the gruesome murder of T P Chandrasekharan, a former CPI(M) local leader who turned against the party for its anti-poor and anti-working class stances. Chandrasekharan was hacked to death by the trio in association with the local leaders of the CPI(M) in one of the hundreds of party villages spread across the northern districts of Kerala.
The CPI(M)’s intention was to bring out the trio from the jail and deploy them to execute leaders with whom the official leadership is cut up as a fall out of the turf war over gold smuggling through Kozhikode International airport. The media in Kerala is under orders of the party not to mention the names of the gold smugglers.
The fight for the control of the gold smuggling operations has led to a turf war between two prominent factions of the CPI(M) which is reminiscent of the fight between the gangs of Dawood Ibrahim (D-Company) and the Pathans gang led by Alamzeb and Amir Zada of Mumbai during the 1970s and 1980s.
On Monday, the whole of Kerala was in for a shock as activists of the CPI(M) and its student wing SFI assaulted Dr Sunil Bhaskar, principal of Gurudeva College of Advanced Studies near Kozhikode when the latter objected to the wayward behavior of the students. A teacher getting beaten up by students is the rarest of rare incidents anywhere in the country but the CPI(M) in its bid to retrieve lost ground is busy bulldozing any kind of challenges to the party and comrades.
