Sitting in her small house in Pathiriyad in Kerala’s violence-torn Kannur district, Suchithra, wife of CPI(M) worker Kuzhichalil Mohanan (52), is unable to understand why her husband was brutally murdered on the morning of October 10 by a gang, allegedly of the RSS-BJP, when he was doing his job as cashier in a toddy shop.
Narayani of Pinarayi in Kannur whose world came to an end on the morning of October 12 when her son Ramith (27), a BJP worker and a truck driver, was hacked to death by a Marxist killer gang near their house also is at a loss of wits to comprehend the meaning of the violence that leaves innocent families helpless. Her husband Uthaman was murdered 14 years ago probably for no other reason than being a BJP worker.
What the political hunters of Kannur fail to see — or do not care to see — is that their cruel deeds are not just putting an end to the lives of their prey but they are also throwing the innocent families of their victims into the whirlpool of helplessness and misery. Violence has produced scores of such victims in the parties’ campaign of violence over the past half-century in Kannur.
“leaders of the CPI(M) and the BJP are now engaged in some kind of an ego clash with either side trying to prove that the other is responsible for starting the violence. The real question is not that. What answer can the leaders give to the questions being posed by the real victims, the families of those killedIJ” asks Ramesh Nambiar, a social worker from Thalassery, Kannur.
The politics of murderous violence between the RSS (and BJP) and the Marxists had started in Kannur five decades ago with the killing of RSS worker Vadikkal Ramakrishnan. Since then, a minimum of 170 lives have been lost in the CPI(M)-RSS violence in this otherwise hospitable district of peace-loving common people.
Suchithra and Narayani are just two pictures of helplessness among the many in the gallery of Kannur violence. “Almost all those murdered in Kannur’s violence were ordinary workers of the BJP-RSS and the CPI(M) and almost all of them were bread-earners of their poor families. In that sense, the violence in Kannur is a huge humanitarian issue,” adds Nambiar.
Since the start of the current round of violence in May with the killing of Raveendran, a CPI(M) worker, in Pinarayi, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s native village, in a bomb attack at an election victory rally of the left, two CPI(M) workers and three BJP workers were hacked to death in the district. Another BJP worker was killed in an explosion.
“By the time I counted 18 hack wounds on my son’s body, I lost consciousness. Why have I been given such a fateIJ” wonders Sarojini, mother of CPI(M) worker CV Dhanaraj (38) of Kunnaru, Payyannur who was murdered in the front courtyard of his house on the night of July 11 allegedly by an RSS-BJP gang that had followed him as he was returning home from work.
Sajini, Dhanaraj’s wife, does not know whom to blame for her hapless condition. All she knows is that murder is most foul and that it brings endless pain to the dear ones of the victims. “It brings huge loss to the dear and near of the victim irrespective of the party he belonged. Only experience can tell you how huge that loss is,” Sajini tells the media.
In a retaliatory strike within two hours of Dhanaraj’s murder, local BMS leader CK Ramachandran (48) of Annoor, a few kilometers from Kunnaru, was hacked to death by a Marxist gang inside his house. “Despite such brutality, the parties behind these crimes continue to claim that their goal is people’s welfare,” fumes Vilasini, a retired college lecturer.
Ramachandran’s widow Rajani is still struggling with herself to find the meaning of her loss and pain. “Nobody else should face this fate. The name of the party to which the victim belonged does not matter. What matters is that no wife should lose her husband, no child his/her father and no mother should lose her son in this way,” says Rajani.