Will Periya verdict be a lesson?
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The verdict in the Kasaragod Periya double murder case, which shook Kerala, has come after six years. The CBI court has found 14 CPM leaders and activists, including former MLA KV Kunhiraman, guilty of the murder of Youth Congress workers Kripesh and Sarath Lal. The sentence will be issued on January 3. The 10 co-accused have also been released. The government's abuse of power to protect the criminals who killed political opponents in the arrogance of power and to sabotage the case has increased the seriousness of this brutal act. Whether the government acknowledges it or not, these shameful efforts have suffered a temporary setback. The Kalliot double murder near Periya took place on February 17, 2019. Although the Crime Branch was given the responsibility of investigation within four days, the government stifled the investigation by constantly changing officials and exerting pressure. However, the official explanation was that the party had no role in the incident. Still covert and overt sabotage took place, including sealing the weapons used in the crime and presenting them in court without even showing the surgeon who conducted the post-mortem. There was also an incident where the accused were taken out of a police jeep, similar to what is often seen in nrth Indian street clashes and movies. Arguing that only a CBI investigation can bring all the culprits to justice, the parents of the murdered youths approached the High Court, and the persistent interventions subsequent to that should be seen as official confirmation that the accused are indeed the government's agents.
Many of the CPM office bearers, including the former MLA, who were not mentioned in the original charge sheet filed by the Crime Branch, were made accused only after the CBI conducted an investigation. The Pinarayi Vijayan government spent more than a crore rupees from the tax money of the people of the state to file the case against the High Court's decision to hand over the investigation to the CBI. The government spent Rs 90,33,132 in the High Court and Rs 24,50,000 in the Supreme Court on lawyers' fees alone.The government has misused public funds to prevent free and impartial investigations and to protect the accused in many other similar violent incidents, including the murders of Ariyil Shukkur, T.P. Chandrasekharan and Mattannur Shuhaib. The government or the party that controls it may not feel ashamed of protecting the heinous criminals who killed their opponents out of political hatred, not observing even a modicum of debate, political decency or etiquette, but the government and the party should not assume that the public of Kerala, who are not slaves who “swallow party capsules without touching throats”, are of that kind. The government should at least have the common sense that the majority it won in the elections is not a license to kill or to sabotage cases in which party members are accused. There may be those who justify that the case was conducted to maintain the prestige of the state police. There is no dispute either that the CBI's investigation and interventions are not completely independent. However, if the state police had been allowed to investigate the case in a fair manner without playing politics, the need for a CBI investigation would not have arisen. If anyone has damaged the prestige of the Kerala police by unjustly interfering in the case and forcing them to save the culprits, it is only the administration ruling the state. One of the biggest factors in turning Kerala, which people proudly call God's Own Country, into an unlivable place is unjust political conflicts. It is not just the CPM that is responsible for this. BJP-Congress-Muslim League-SDPI and others are all guilty of this immorality. There is no point in accusing the new generation of apolitical mindset who are leaving the country to seek a place in other states and foreign countries for studies, jobs and residence.
If the Malayali youths who are upset to see young people like them, who were the hopes of every family, being chopped up on the streets in the throes of power and being tried by party courts and thrown to death, feel allergic to party or politics itself, one cannot blame them alone. The party is not learning from voters' desertions in the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency after the TP murder and in Kasaragod after the Periya double murder. A CPM leader in North Kerala made a murderous speech recalling the experience of a young man who was sentenced to death by the party court on the same day the verdict in the Periya case was announced. The respected Chief Minister of Kerala, who is also responsible for the Home Department, should understand that discussions held with Sangh Parivar through a godman as a mediator, are not the permanent solution to political conflicts. Is the government ready to decide that those who commit political and communal crimes will not be protected, that there will be zero tolerance for aggressors and hate mongers, regardless of which party they belong to, and that they will not fight cases to shield them with security? If so, there will be no room for thugs to become suicide bombers and to execute political assassination contracts. And then Kerala will stand with that united to isolate them.