Govt targets Kerala’s ‘CPM villages’

Kerala Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan on Monday said that the Government would not allow the existence of party villages run by the CPI(M) in Kannur district even as the police issued lookout circular for a local Marxist leader in the district in the case pertaining to the May 4 murder of rebel TP Chandrasekharan in Onchiyam, Kozhikode.

Talking to newsmen in Kannur, Thiruvanchoor said that the concept of party villages was contrary to the country’s sovereignty as they were equivalent to countries within the country. Kannur, known as the Marxist heartland of Kerala, and Kozhikode districts have dozens of such “liberated” party villages which literally are impregnable fortresses of the CPI(M).

The attention of the Government fell on the party villages after the police reportedly found that most of the culprits behind the brutal murder of Chandrasekharan were hiding in these Marxist fortresses. A young Muslim League worker was hacked to death allegedly by Marxist executioners on February 20 on the basis of a decree of a party court in such a village.

Thiruvanchoor also said that the portraits of (Marxist) political leaders adorning the walls of Block 8 of the Central Prison in Kannur would be removed. This block is known as the impregnable camp of Marxists serving terms in cases related to political violence inside the Kannur jail.

“I saw portraits of leaders – living and dead – of a particular political party in Block 8 of the prison. I don’t want to subject any party to controversies and therefore I am not naming the organization,” Thiruvanchoor told newsmen on Monday after visiting the prison. He reprimanded prison officials for not installing CCTV cameras in this particular block.

Meanwhile, the Kerala Police issued country-wide lookout circular for KP Kunhananthan, member of the CPI(M)’s Panur area committee in Kannur, in the case of murder of Chandrasekharan. All prominent airports in India had been given the circular in a bid to prevent the possibility of his escape from the country.

According to the police, Kunhananthan had played a crucial role in the conspiracy behind the murder of Chandrasekharan, leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) he and fellow-rebels had floated in 2008 after leaving the CPI(M). In the beginning of the probe itself, the police had got information that the Panur CPI(M) committee had involvement in the murder.

There were reports that Kunhananthan had arranged hiding places for the hired hoodlums who had hacked Chandrasekharan to death and had given them the required financial assistance. The police had the other day raided his house. They have so far arrested 14 suspects in the case.

With this, the entire focus of the probe into the murder has fallen on the CPI(M) of Kannur and Kozhikode districts. Three local level leaders, members of local committees of Orkatteri and Kunnummakkara local committees in Kozhikode and Kunnothuparambu in Kannur, had already been arrested in the case.