n The CPI(M), self-styled protectors and saviours of the minority communities in India, lament from national and international platforms about the “Manipur massacre of Christians by the Sangh Parivar elements”, the members of the community in Kerala live in continuous threat by the comrades.
Jiju Thomas (46), a farmer in Peruvannammoozhi village in Kozhikode district has been attacked several times by CPI(M) workers for standing up to their high handedness.
For the last 11 years, Thomas has been living under 24X7 police protection given to him under the orders of Kerala High Court. This is the fall out of his resignation from the CPI(M) subsequent to the party cadre seizing his five acre agriculture land (his only source of subsistence) and declared it as surplus land. Though Thomas pleaded with party commissars that the land they had seized does not fall under surplus land, they were adamant and did not pay any heed to his pleas.
“Since the day I got the court order, they turned against me and my family. Though they had planted a bomb in my bike, I had a miraculous escape. They demolished my house and I was grievously wounded in their attack. It was following these incidents that the High Court ordered police protection to me,” Thomas told The Pioneer.
The Marad Special Court where the trial took place sentenced the CPI(M) workers to seven years imprisonment and fine of Rs 10,000/- “But when their appeal reached the High Court, things took a strange turn and the Court quashed the Special Court verdict,”he said.
When his family members too came under attack, Thomas left with no alternative other than sending them out to Karnataka for their studies. The party workers destroyed the entire crop of coconut and arecanut saplings he had planted. “Hence I built a building and tried to give it on rental to shop keepers. That too was sabotaged by the comrades who threatened the clients and they made a quick retreat. Though the cops are guarding my house, it is only to prevent housebreaking by the party workers,” he said.
Kevin Peter, president Christian Alliance for Social Action (CASA) said this shows the hypocrisy of the Lefts. Kevin and Thomas said that Peruvannaamoozhi was one of the prominent party villages (party village where only the diktat of the CPI(M) runs). “The village secretary of the party is the last world and it is he who decides whom and when a rival has to be executed. We have examples of Jayakrishnan and T P Chandrasekharan before us. Both of then were butchered by the executioners deployed by the party,” said Thomas.
Thomas further stated that though hundreds of small and marginal farmers in the village have secretly expressed solidarity with him, they were afraid to come out in the open lest they too earn the wrath of party higher-ups.