CPM thugs and DySP constitutes “The quotation team”

Poothadi: 5 accused surrender

PNS | Kalpetta

Five
accused persons — four CPI(M) workers and a Congress (S) leader —
surrendered before the police on Saturday in the case relating to the
abduction of VN Saseendran, vice-president, Poothadi Grama Panchayath.
The police produced the accused at a court in Sulthan Batheri which
remanded them in judicial custody for 14 days.

The accused
surrendered before the circle inspector of police, Pulpally, at about
3.00 pm Saturday. Those who surrendered were CPI(M) activists BS
Janardhanan (district secretariat member), MV Jayan, TR Ravi and TB
Suresh and PK Sabu, State secretary of the Congress (S), a minor
constituent of the LDF.

The Government had decided to leave the
aspect of certain police officials’ alleged role in the abduction to
the Intelligence Department of the police and Inspector General
(Intelligence) K Padmakumar had reached Kalpetta for intitial
investigations. He had taken the statement of Saseendran on Friday.

Saseendran
had told the media that G Haridas, DySP, Mananthawadi had connived with
the abductors. He had also said that Haridas had asked him to tell his
family and others nothing about the abduction. He has told him to say
that he had gone on a pilgrimage to justify the seven-day absence.

The
grama panchayath vice-president, who reappeared on April 27, seven days
after he was gone missing, had said the DySP, Mananthawadi had been
involved in his abduction along with local CPI(M) leaders. According to
his statement in the High Court, local CPI(M) leaders had abducted him
in the context of his switching sides from the LDF’s Congress (S) to
the UDF in the Poothadi Grama Panchayath which took the 21-member
council to a tie with ten members on each side.

The abduction
drama had become a huge controversy in Kerala polices especially with
Saseendran’s statement that a “quotation team” (hired hitmen) had
reached the place where he was kept with the intention of killing him.
He said he had feared life would end in that unknown place as he had
overheard the abductors telling the hitmen that they would be paid Rs
200,000 if they took him to Ooty.