The Kerala CPI(M) on Wednesday alleged that the Central and State Governments were trying to trap its leaders in fabricated criminal cases in order to keep them away from active political work in the context of the Assembly election to be held in May.
Referring to the notice the CBI served on P Jayarajan, CPI(M)’s Kannur district secretary, asking him to appear before it for questioning in connection with the murder of RSS leader Elanthodath Manoj in Kathiroor, Kannur, the State party secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said in Kochi that this was part of a bid by the Central agency to trap him in a fabricated case.
“Certain sections fear that the left might repeat the victory it had scored in the recent local bodies’ election in the Assembly poll. This is the reason why the Congress-led UDF and the RSS are attacking the CPI(M). That is why the Centre and State Home Department are trying to keep our leaders away from active politics by implicating them in bogus cases,” he said.
“The State Home Department is trying to exile many of our leaders and thus keep them away from campaigning for the Assembly poll by slapping cases on them under UAPA and KAAPA (Kerala Anti-social Activities (Prevention) Act). We will effectively oppose such moves,” Kodiyeri said.
In the meantime, Jayarajan, who was asked to appear before the CBI officials probing the Manoj murder on Wednesday, refused to comply with the instruction citing health reasons. The CBI officials had called him in order to question him in connection with the alleged conspiracy behind the murder of RSS leader Manoj.
Jayarajan told the CBI that he would not be able to appear before it for a week. The agency agreed to this and decided to call him after a week. The Kannur CPI(M) is planning to approach the court against the move of the CBI by the time it sends the next notice to its district secretary. This was the third time the CBI had called Jayarajan for quizzing.
The agency had questioned him for over seven hours in Thiruvananthapuram on June 2 last in connection with the case. When a second notice was served, Jayarajan approached a court in Thalassery seeking anticipatory bail but the court rejected the application saying it was irrelevant since he had not been listed as an accused.
Manoj, Kannur district Sharirik Shikshan Pramukh of the RSS, was hacked to death by a Marxist killer gang on September 1, 2014 when he was proceeding from Kathiroor to Kannur in his Maruti Omni vehicle. The killers had dragged him out and hacked him to death after creating a terror scene by hurling country-made bombs at the vehicle.
The case was first investigated by a special team of the Crime Branch of the Kerala Police, which had named 18 Marxists as accused. The Kerala Government later handed over the investigation to the CBI in the context of pressures from the BJP and RSS for a probe into the conspiracy behind the murder.
The CBI thinks that one of the reasons behind the murder of Manoj was Jayarajan’s enmity towards him for his role in the attempt to murder him on August 25, 1999. Manoj was fifth accused in the case pertaining to that attack in which Jayarajan had suffered hack wounds all over his body and his right hand was chopped off.
According to the CBI, all the accused in the case had close connections with Jayarajan and that he had protected them after Manoj’s murder. The connection of P Vikraman, first accused, with Jayarajan was so close that he used to handle domestic affairs in the latter’s house, it is said.