The CPI(M) has fielded party leaders Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan, both accused in the sensational case pertaining to the murder of Muhammad Fazal, an activist of the NDF (presently Popular Front of India), in October, 2006 as candidates for the local bodies election. Fazal’s widow Mariyam Fazal also will contest the election.
At the same time, the Marxist party dropped its plan to field two of its workers, Prakasan and Ramachandran, accused in the case relating to the murder of RSS leader Elanthottathil Manoj of Kathiroor, Kannur. P Jayarajan, Kannur district CPI(M) secretary, said, “No partyman listed as accused in the Manoj murder case, is contesting in the civic election.”
Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan, currently on bail in the Fazal murder case on the condition that they should not enter home district Kannur, filed their nomination papers on Monday. Chandrasekharan is a candidate in the Thalassery Municipality in Kannur from the Chellakkara ward while Rajan is contesting to the Kannur District Panchayat.
Several senior CPI(M) leaders including P Jayarajan and State committee member MV Jayarajan accompanied Rajan to the Kannur district collectorate to file their nomination papers. The CPI(M) leadership had decided to field the two murder-accused as candidates despite intense protests from within the party and outside.
Admitting that there were objections to their candidature within the party, a CPI(M) leader in Thalassery said, “But the fact is that both are sure to win. Rajan has been fielded in the Patyam division of the district panchayat where the party has brutal strength. He may even become the district panchayat president.”
Both Rajan and Chandrasekharan had reached Kannur on Sunday night with a special court order which permitted them to enter the district. “Truth cannot be kept concealed forever. We will come out clean by proving our innocence in the case. Before that, the people’s court will judge us innocent through this election,” Chandrasekharan said.
Mariyam Fazal, whose legal battle had made a CBI probe possible into her husband’s murder, will contest the election to the Thalassery Municipality from its Kaivattam ward as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of the Islamist organisation, Popular Front of India.
Fazal, also an agent of the NDF-managed Thejas newspaper, was murdered in Thalassery on October 22, 2006. Subsequent probes by the Kerala Police had become highly controversial with allegedly false conclusions. The Kerala High Court ordered a CBI probe into the murder in March, 2008 as a result of the legal battle fought by the victim’s widow.