A squabble has erupted in Kerala over the framing of charges against the accused under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the recommendation for a CBI probe in the case pertaining to the brutal murder of RSS leader Manoj in Kathiroor, Kannur even as the CBI has expressed its readiness to take over the investigation.
The CPI(M), which is standing accused in the Manoj murder case, has been opposing the inclusion of charges under the UAPA against the accused by saying that the Congress-led UDF Government in the State is trying to appease the BJP-led regime at the Centre. But now a senior leader of the Congress itself has come out against the imposition of the UAPA charges.
Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Vayalar Ravi said in Kozhikode on Sunday that the inclusion of charges under the UAPA against the accused was an act of idiocy. “This (the murder of Manoj) was part of the political rivalries seen in local levels. It is not proper to frame charges under laws pertaining to national security,” he said.
However, he refused to share the ire the CPI(M) had shown towards the recent visit of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to the house of Manoj in Kathiroor to console his family members. “There is nothing wrong in it,” he said. Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan had termed Singh’s visit to Manoj’s house as a cheap act.
Home Minister Chennithala, a former State Congress chief, justified the police action of including the charges under UAPA against the accused by saying that similar charge was first framed in a case in Kerala when Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPI(M) Politbureau member, was the Home minister (in the 2006-11 lDF government).
Stating that it was Kodiyeri who had used the provisions of the UAPA, a law very much in existence in the country, for the first time in Kerala in the case related to the chopping of the hand of a professor in July, 2010, Chennithala said that the CPI(M) was raising such complaints as they were afraid of a CBI investigation into the Manoj murder case.
Manoj (42), Kannur district Sharirik Shikshan Pramukh of the RSS, was hacked to death by a CPI(M) killer gang at Kathiroor, Kannur on September 1. A special team of the Kerala Police’s Crime Branch, which is currently probing the murder, has already arrested three CPI(M) activists for the murder.
Amidst reports from Delhi that the CBI has expressed its readiness to take over the investigation into the murder of the RSS leader, State CPI(M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan alleged that the probe by the Central agency was part of a secret understanding between the Congress party and the RSS.
“The Kerala Home Minister had handed over the case to the CBI even by forgetting his own department’s responsibilities only because he had an RSS mind,” Pinarayi said on Sunday. The Kerala Government had decided to hand over the case to the CBI within six days of the murder of Manoj.
Reports from Delhi said on Sunday that the CBI had expressed willingness to take over the investigation into the murder of the RSS leader. CBI Director Ranjit Sinha was quoted as saying that the agency had already written a letter to the Department of Personnel informing it of its readiness.