CPI (M)-sponsored Talibanisation of Kerala-I

V SUNDARAM

Kerala has been generally known to be one of the safest states in India in terms of maintenance of law and order, public peace and tranquility and overall communal and social harmony.

        This long established pattern and tradition is now undergoing a violent change on account of the lawless anti-national forces being let loose in a deliberate manner by the ruling CPI(M)- led government.
 
 

Ambulances with the bodies of victims of the 2003 massacre at Marad.

        Crime Survey Statistics clearly indicate that Kerala is witnessing an unprecedented rise in the rates of crime and violence during the last three or four years. Anyone can see that there is a steadily rising upward trend in major categories of crime like rape, armed dacoity, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny, homicide, kidnapping, drug trafficking and contract murder.

        What is most disturbing to note is that there is an increasing incidence of politically motivated murder, violent crime and terrorist bombing. Another important point to be noted is that the actual incidence of crime against women and children is higher than the number of recorded crimes reported to the police.

        Further there is continued and extended political patronage of the CPI(M) and its allies in the government to black money launderers, illegal drug traffickers, flesh traders and explosive marketers. Drunken and often violent hooliganism has become a standard feature of night life in most towns and cities.

        Dr Babu Suseelan rightly concludes: ‘There is a standard black market in Kerala for illegal drugs, illicit liquor, explosives and counterfeit money. Criminal gangs and loan sharks prowl the streets and they settle disputes with violence, kidnapping and murder.’

        What has brought about this massive, ugly, and ever-expanding phenomenon of increasing criminalisation? The ruthless process of uncontrolled forces let loose by the domain of globalisation has fundamentally altered and transformed the context in which criminal organisations, mostly from the Middle-East launder money into Kerala. Anyone can see that organised criminal gangs fully backed and financed by Pakistan ISI and smugglers from the Middle-East, illicit money launderers and Jihadis have multiplied their wealth and power in Kerala under the political hegemony and open patronage of the ruling CPI(M), Christian Congress, and the Muslim League.
 

Justice Thomas P Joseph, who inquired into the killings, on Marad beach.

        What is even most disturbing is that more and more Hindu activists belonging to the RSS and the VHP are getting killed by CPI (M) activists almost everyday operating in continuous criminal collusion with Islamic fanatics belonging to different Muslim political outfits.

        Murdering and beheading of several innocent Hindus and Hindu activists has become a regular feature in recent years. To cite a few specific instances in this context: On 3 May, 2003, in a coastal area in Calicut city called Marad, a large gang of criminal and fundamentalist Muslim fishermen hacked to death in a brutal manner eight Hindu fishermen.

        Around 140 terrorist Muslims were arrested and are undergoing trial. The government of Kerala ordered a judicial enquiry by Thomas P Joseph, District and Sessions Judge in Calicut.

        Much to the discomfiture of major political parties in the State, the Joseph Commission, which was set up to inquire into the circumstances that led to the second Marad killings in May 2003, has in a way, turned the spotlight on the facts and circumstances of the 2002 killings. The report emphasises what political Kerala already knew well but has tried to ignore: that the January 2002 incident was the result of ?political interests and other vested interests? that developed following a minor altercation between two men belonging to the different communities, which flared up into a major communal incident resulting in the death of five people, injury to several others and damage to several houses. It says that the delay in filing charge-sheets in that case was subsequently utilised by ‘Muslim fundamentalists, terrorists and other forces’ to capitalise on the grievance of relatives of three Muslims killed and to use it as a cause for vengeance against Hindus of Marad as a whole.

        It also says that the inquiry by the State Crime Branch CID (CB-CID) into the May 2003 incident had failed to unravel the ‘larger conspiracy’ and the sources of the large cache of arms and ammunition unearthed subsequently in the area and of the sizable funds used in the planning and execution of the murders.

        The commission’s main recommendation, is a further inquiry, involving the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) into the ‘larger conspiracy’ involving fundamentalist and other forces, and into the source of the explosives and funds that the CB-CID ‘failed or refused’ to investigate – an act that the commission described as ‘quite suspicious and disturbing.’

        It has also indicated the urgent need to inquire into the involvement of Inter-State Muslim terrorist groups and the involvement of foreign terrorist agencies like the ISI.

        The panel has concluded, among other things, that the incident was a sequel to the largely politically motivated murder of five persons in the village in January 2002 and a fallout of the then Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government’s ‘unjustified delay’ in the prosecution of those accused of the crime. The whole truth behind the revenge killings at the coastal village of Marad in Kozhikode district in May 2003, the worst communal incident in the recent history of Kerala, is unlikely to be revealed soon, if at all.

        The commission report is also critical of the role of the civil administration, the State police and the Crime Branch. It says that despite clear evidence that there was a ‘long-drawn conspiracy’ and that the objective of the assailants was not merely to kill certain persons but ‘to create bigger havoc and ignite large-scale riot’, the CB-CID team stuck to its simple theory of revenge killings.

        The question as to whether other forces were involved in the massacre ‘was not even an issue for the Crime Branch team,’ the report says.

        The Joseph Commission has also strongly indicted the civil administration for being lethargic and failing to take timely, preventive and remedial action after the 2002 incident even though intelligence reports had indicated that there was the possibility of violence again at Marad and that stockpiling of weapons by both sides was taking place, mostly in Muslim-dominated areas.

        The panel has also found evidence of detailed intelligence reports suggesting that efforts of government-initiated peace committees were not yielding the desired results, that fundamentalist elements were active in the area and that the people feared an imminent bout of communal revenge attacks.

        It has drawn attention to the report of one of the officers of the State Special Branch that ‘a person nicknamed ‘FM’ (Finance Minister) who came to Kozhikode from the Gulf countries on 2 May, 2003 was the source of the money behind the massacre’, that two Cabinet Ministers of the State had ‘unimaginable connections’ with the ‘FM’.

        The CPI- (M) coalition government slept over this recommendation of the District and Sessions Judge for making a reference to the CBI and other Central agencies. I understand that at long last the government of Kerala accepted the recommendation of the District and Sessions Judge Thomas P Joseph and requested the government of India to direct the CBI to enquire into the matter. I now understand that all the Muslim terrorist groups in Kerala have brought political pressure on the UPA government to stall all further action in the matter. It is understood that under pressure from the UPA government, just in order to keep his job at any cost, the Director of the CBI has chosen to ignore the considered recommendation of the Joseph Commission and later duly seconded by the government of Kerala. What does this all mean? In these columns, I have observed several times that the functioning of the CBI during the last two decades has been professionally so disgraceful that it has indeed become a monument of national shame and dishonor. The common man in the street legitimately views the CBI as a Criminal Bureau of Instigation, Criminal Bureau of Intimidation, Criminal Bureau of Insinuation, Criminal Bureau of Infliction, and above all as a Criminal Bureau of Illegal Incarceration.

        The whole world knows that it functions as an exclusively elitist executive arm of the Congress Party for settling all its political scores with its political enemies, known and unknown.

        To summarise in the words of Dr Babu Suseelan once again: ‘This increased criminal activity in Kerala is based on a continuing symbiotic relationship between criminal gangs, government agencies and politicians. Their ability to bribe and corrupt political leaders, law enforcement agencies and media persons is enormous. Crime syndicates operating in Kerala have established safe heavens in Dubai and Karachi where the governments are hostile to the Indian democratic tradition.’

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

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