Causing huge embarrassment to Kerala’s already beleaguered CPI(M), the State police's Crime Branch has concluded that leaders and activists of the Marxist party and its youth wing DYFI were behind the torching of the memorial of P Krishna Pillai, founder-leader of the communist movement in Kerala, at Kannarangatt, Muhamma in Alappuzha district last year.
A special investigation team of the Crime Branch, which probed the incident, named five CPI(M)-DYFI leaders and activists as accused in the case in the report it submitted before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Alappuzha on Thursday. Crime Branch sources said that the accused would be arrested soon.
The police report is expected to create serious troubles for the CPI(M)- both inside the party and outside - as it has come out just when the party is preparing to hold its State conference in Alappuzha in February. The development may also to lead to intensification of groupism in the party.
As per the Crime Branch's probe report, CPI(M) leader latheesh B Chandran, who was a member of the personal staff of VS Achuthanandan when he was the Chief Minister, is the first accused in the case while CPI(M)'s former Kannarangatt local committee secretary P Sabu is the second accused. CPI(M)-DYFI activists Deepu, Rajesh Rajan and Pramod are the other accused.
In a quick reaction, the CPI(M) expelled Sabu and Pramod from the primary membership of the party while the district committee of the DYFI expelled Deepu and Rajesh from the organization. latheesh is not a member of the CPI(M) presently. The party's district secretary said more actions might come as details of the investigation report came out.
The police made it clear in the report that it was the rampant groupism in the local CPI(M) which had led to the incident. Intense group wars had been going on in the CPI(M) of the Kanjikkuzhy area committee under which Kannarangatt came ever since Pinarayi Vijayan became the State secretary of the party in 1998. Kanjikkuzhy is considered to be a CPI(M) fortress.
According to the probe report, submitted in the court by Superintendent of Police RK Jayarajan, the accused had torched the Krishna Pillai Memorial and damaged his bust installed at the premises as an act of vengeance against the disciplinary action the party had taken against them. The party had earlier expelled latheesh and Sabu in the name of divisionist activities.
The Krishna Pillai memorial was vandalised in the wee hours of October 31, 2013. The incident had led to tension between the CPI(M) and the Congress with the former accusing the latter of perpetrating the crime as an act of revenge for the attack on Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in Kannur just a few days before that.