An explosion that occurred last Saturday allegedly during bomb-making at Kolavallur near Panur in Kerala’s Kannur district in which two young Marxists were killed and two others were seriously injured has triggered panic in the politically sensitive district with suspicion becoming widespread that the CPI(M) workers were making the bombs as part of a plan to unleash fresh violence.
Though the CPI(M) has officially denied having any role in the explosion, a preliminary investigation by the police has confirmed that the blast had occurred during bomb-making by party activists. Those who closely watch the history of political violence in Kannur say that the spot at Kolavallur is just one of the many bomb-making centres the CPI(M) has in the district.
Top police officials suspect that the intention behind large-scale bomb-making at Kolavallur could have been to use them for unleashing violence in case the CBI arrests district CPI(M) secretary P Jayarajan, accused of plotting many violent incidents in Kannur, in the case pertaining to the murder of RSS leader KT Manoj on September 1 last.
The CBI had questioned Jayarajan on June 2 in Thiruvananthapuram as part of its investigation into the conspiracy behind the murder of Manoj, Sharirik Shiksha Pramukh of the RSS in Kannur. The main accused among the 18 Marxists arrested in the case had told the CBI that Manoj was murdered as an act of revenge for an attack by the RSS on Jayarajan back in 1999.
“There is no other reason why the Kannur CPI(M) should take up bomb-making in such a large scale at this time,” said a retired police official in Thalassery, Kannur. “There is a genuine fear in the CPI(M) that Jayarajan could be arrested. If that happens, it will be a big embarrassment for the party. The only way it knows to overcome such embarrassment is violence,” he said.
Hundreds have lost lives in incidents of political violence in Kannur, known as the Marxist killing field, in the past four decades. Curiously, the CPI(M) has been on one side of almost all these conflicts.
This was not the first time that CPI(M) activists had become victims of bomb-making by the party in Kannur. Jayarajan’s son Ashish P Raj had lost both his palms in an explosion that occurred while making bombs under a bridge in 2009. Though the CPI(M) tried to project this as an accident caused by Vishu festival firecrackers but there were no takers for the theory.
Another theory of the police about Saturday’s blast is that the bombs being made at Kolavallur were intended to be used in the violence that a section in the CPI(M) was planning to unleash in response to the BJP’s invasion into the Marxist strongholds in Kannur, called “party villages”, in recent times.
The CPI(M) has of late been extremely worried about the large-scale flow of party activists and sympathizers in Kannur district into the BJP. As per the party’s own assessment, a minimum of five percent to eight percent of the party workers and sympathizers in Kannur had migrated or were ready to move into the BJP in the past two years.
However, people in Panur, Kathiroor and other places which have seen many serious incidents of Marxist violence in the past say that the bomb-making at Kolavallur could have been part of the CPI(M)’s preparation for the local bodies election to be held in October. They say that Kannur used to see escalation in political violence during run-up to elections.
On Monday, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala stated in the Assembly that the Government was determined to “wipe out” the politics of bombs from the State. Confirming that the two Marxist youths were killed in Kannur on Saturday not in any attack from outside, he said NSG-trained police personnel would be deployed in the Panur area to control the situation.