The CPI(M)-led lDF had come to power in Kerala last month with a pledge to end atrocities against women, especially from the poor and Dalit sections, but when asked on Sunday about the issue concerning the jailing of two Dalit women the other day on allegedly fabricated charges in his home district Kannur, Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's reply was, “Ask the police. I have nothing to say about that.”
When the issue was brought to his attention by mediamen in Delhi on Saturday, 24 hours after the two Dalit women aged 30 and 25, daughters of a Congress leader, along with an 18-month-old child of one of them, the response of the Chief Minister, who is also holding the Home portfolio, was even stranger. “It hasn't come to my notice.”
“What does it mean if the Chief Minister handling Home Affairs says he should not be asked about such vital issues and that police alone have answersIJ” asked Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress. “If every explanation is to come from the police, why should there be a Minister in-charge of the policeIJ Is Kerala under police RajIJ” he asked.
The Congress has decided to make a big issue out of the jailing of the two young Dalit women, Akhila (30) and Anjana (25), under judicial remand and to organise protests across the State. “Pinarayi's reply is not acceptable. It is anti-democratic. Being the Chief Minister it is his duty to know about such developments,” said former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
Those, who know how the CPI(M) functions in Kannur, known as Kerala's Marxist heartland, say that nothing can happen in the district, especially in areas controlled by the party, without Pinarayi's knowledge. “Instead of making such irresponsible statements, he could have used some diplomatically and said he would look into the matter,” said a BJP leader from Thalassery.
The issue pertains to the sending of the two young Dalit women, daughters of Congress leader N Rajan of Kuttimakkool in Thalassery, on Friday under judicial remand on the basis of an allegedly false complaint from a CPI(M)-DYFI functionary that they had barged into the party's Kuttimakkool branch committee office and attacked him on June 11.
The left had made the insecurity of Dalit women under the then Congress-led rule a big campaign issue for the May 16 Assembly election in the context of the rape-murder of a Dalit law student in Perumbavoor on April 28. The Marxists had even staged a long day-night agitation demanding justice for the murdered woman and end to atrocities against Dalit women.
According to Akhila and Anjana, they had indeed gone to the CPI(M) office but that was to question the DYFI leader and others after they publicly insulted them with references to their caste. The Thalassery police slapped non-bailable charges on the two women and they were sent to the Central Prison in Kannur after a court remanded them on the DYFI man's complaint.
“They (the Marxists and the police) are saying that we had attacked them with dangerous weapons. We had no weapons with us. It was they who had attacked us with chairs. We had gone there to know from them why they were insulting us whenever we passed by the party office. They have been doing this for a very long time,” said Akhila.
The two women were released on Saturday evening on bail granted by a Thalassery court but the issue did not end there. Anjana was admitted to a Thalassery hospital at midnight Saturday after she attempted to commit suicide by consuming some pills reportedly after a woman CPI(M) leader attempted character assassination at her and her family on a TV talk show.
Anjana is already out of danger but Congress leaders have demanded booking of the woman Marxist leader and others for forcing the Dalit woman to attempt to commit suicide. “The National Human Rights Commission should directly probe the whole development,” said former Union Minister Mullappally Ramachandran.
“What is the Government doing to the Dalit women hereIJ” asked Bindu Krishna, State president of the Women's Congress. “We have a Social Justice Minister (KK Shylaja) who hails from Kannur itself. She has not spoken even a single word about this whole incident nor has she visited these Dalit women. What kind of a Government is thisIJ” she asked.