There should be fear - and vigilance

The allegation made by the ruling party MLA that there are notorious criminals and murderers among the leaders of the police force and the subsequent announcement of the Chief Minister's inquiry and follow-up by the Home Department have raised serious concerns about the state's administrative apparatus. Nilambur MLA PV Anwar has made very serious charges against ADGP MR Ajithkumar, who is in charge of law and order in the police department, and Sujith Das, who was serving as the district police chief in Malappuram and Pathanamthitta. The Chief Minister was forced to take further action on the disclosure of the MLA, whose accusations included claims against the Chief Minister's office as well. The state government has announced an inquiry about the claims and decided to remove ADGP Ajith Kumar from the current post and suspend SP Sujit Das.

It is a shocking revelation from the MLA that the very officers who head the law and order wing of the police, tasked with cracking down on gangs, underworld activities, and drug smuggling rackets, are leading such heinous activities. The allegations against the official include taking advantage of his position to get involved in the criminal activities that rival the underworld. They include hacking the phones of politicians including ministers and journalists using the cyber cell, killing people in connection with gold smuggling, torturing relatives and dear ones of innocents to frame them in murder cases, taking bribes of crores of rupees from the person under investigation in a case of defaming the state administration and spreading bigotry and hatred, and extorting gold and cash under the guise of chasing gold smugglers. He is also in cahoots with smuggling gangs inside and outside Kerala. When the MLA complains about this to the Chief Minister's office and no action is taken and he demands that the political secretary of CM should be investigated whether he is involved in the crimes, the finger is actually being pointed at the Chief Minister himself. Seeing this serious situation, the Chief Minister announced the decision of the investigation with the accused ADGP himself on the dais while addressing the police association's state conference.

It is a complaint related to the theft of wooden logs worth thousands of rupees from Malappuram SP office premises that has now led to revelations that are shaking Kerala politics. Anwar's campaign, which started against the illegal smuggling of timber from the SP's camp office, which was raising technical objections against schemes including the Government's Life Mission project, soon extended to the Pathanamthitta SP who had earlier been the SP in Malappuram and the ADGP. Meanwhile, last Saturday, a voice message from Pathanamthitta SP was released in which Sujit Das calls MLA and apologizes in order to escape from the case by assuring a life of obedience for the rest of his life. Later, Anwar came forward with more serious allegations, making ADGP Ajithkumar, an accused. He pointed to the properties owned by ADGP and his growing wealth, who is erecting a three-story mansion in a prime real estate in Thiruvananthapuram.

The MLA's argument is that the accused are behind incidents like the murder of a person who was believed to be the informer of gold smuggling in Edavanna, the suicide of a police officer in custody in Tanur, and the disappearance of a merchant in Kozhikode. He also claimed that he had evidence to back the allegations. It has also been revealed that the wife of the person who is currently under arrest in the Edavanna murder case was tortured in order to implicate him in the case. Malappuram SP Sujith, who previously worked in airport customs, is using that connection to steal a large portion of the smuggled gold at the airport. As there is CCTV surveillance at the airport, if the smuggled gold is caught, the evidence cannot be tampered with. The MLA alleged that even if gold is detected by the customs, it is left unseized and SP's special team DANSAF arrests them on the information they give, and the arrested are taken to a secret centr, a good portion of the gold is siphoned off and the rest is handed over to the customs. This is yet another iteration of the underworld operation in which the ADGP was allegedly involved. It should be made clear whether the Chief Minister, who praised the excellence of the police force even yesterday, is not aware of the activities taking place in his own department, or whether the external forces that supersede him are taking hold of the power centres.

In short, the issues that have arisen now cannot be resolved by merely taking action against the two officials. The opposition had already been accusing the chief minister, who is in charge of home affairs, of not having control over his department. MLAs and leaders of the ruling party have raised allegations about the mysterious partisanship of the police. Now none less than the top official who was supposed to stop the crimes is himself being accused of involvement in terrorist crimes. It should be noted that the person who was transferred from the position of vigilance director in the case of sending middleman to persuade the accused in the gold smuggling case, has later become the head of law and order. When the MLA says that he still has a lot more to reveal and he has stopped firing for the time being, something is rotten in the core of the administration itself. So, it is not enough to keep two officers aside. A radical clean-up will be required in the power structure and associated systems. Or else, we should worry that Kerala will be heading to be in the grip of underworld political and bureaucratic groups.