Onchiyam village in Kozhikode district and many other places in Kerala are observing on Sunday the second anniversary of the brutal killing of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan, but a proper probe into the conspiracy behind the murder, allegedly hatched by CPI(M) leaders, has not yet been conducted though the police and the Government are convinced of such a plot.
The Crime Branch of the Kerala Police which had identified the conspiracy did not investigate it and the special investigation team constituted in February for the purpose stopped its probe after the Kerala Government issued an order handing it over to the CBI. The Central agency, however, is in no mood to take up the investigation.The inability of the State Government to get a proper investigation held by a credible agency into the plot behind the brutal murder has rekindled the allegation that this inaction is part of the “politics of understanding” the Congress-led ruling UDF and the CPI(M)-headed Opposition lDF are often playing on issues related to political violence.
The Special Additional Sessions Court at Eranhipalam, Kozhikode, where the trial in the murder case was held, had on January 28 sentenced three CPI(M) functionaries to life imprisonment for conspiring to murder Chandrasekharan but the Government and the slain rebel’s family still believe that more senior CPI(M) leaders were involved in the conspiracy.A seven-man killer gang, said to be sympathisers of the CPI(M), had brutally hacked Chandrasekharan to death on the night of May 4, 2012 at Vallikkad near his village Onchiyam as he was returning home alone on a motorbike. The Prosecution had chargesheeted 36 accused, most of whom were CPI(M) men, but the court acquitted 24 of them.
As the demand for a CBI probe into the conspiracy behind the murder intensified, the Government had on February 7 ordered an investigation by an SIT of the Kerala Police for the purpose following an indefinite hunger strike held at the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram by KK Rama, widow of Chandrasekharan.The SIT was constituted as a prelude to handing over the probe into the conspiracy to the CBI in order to overcome the possible legal impediments in a case that had already been tried and settled by a court. The team collected evidences on the basis of a case freshly registered at Edacheri Police Station in Kozhikode district as per a complaint lodged by Rama.
Despite the court’s identification of three Marxists as conspirators and the general belief that more Marxists were involved in it, the CPI(M) had recently expelled KC Ramachandran, one of the convicts and a local functionary of the party in Kozhikode, saying that his personal rivalry against Chandrasekharan had led to the heinous crime.After the Government issued an order handing over the probe to the CBI, the SIT stopped the probe it was holding. At the same time, the CBI took a position that it would not be a good idea for it to investigate a particular aspect of a complicated case which had already been tried and settled by a court. The agency has reportedly informed the State Government of its position.
The suspension of the SIT probe and the CBI’s refusal to take up the case have rekindled the allegation of secret understanding between the Congress party and the Marxists. Rama and the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), founded by Chandrasekharan in 2008 after leaving the CPI(M), have already raised this allegation.