Home should remove doubts over Madani, says VS

Chief
Minister VS Achuthanandan has said that the Home Department of Minister
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan of the CPI(M) had the responsibility to answer to
the doubts of the media in the issue of PDP chairman Abdul Nasser
Madani’s alleged terror connections.

Speaking about the reported
role of Madani’s wife Sufiya in the sensational case of bus-burning at
Kalamassery in 2005 in an TV interview, Achuthanandan said that there
was nothing wrong in the media raising criticisms if the Home
Department was not taking necessary action in such issues.

In
such situations, the Home Ministry should take the necessary action
examining the matter, he said. The Government was responsible for
solving the doubts of the media, Achuthanandan added.

The Chief
Minister said that it was up to Madani and his wife to come clean on
the issues like the bus-burning. They should be ready to remove the
doubts in the minds of the people. They should also be prepared to
correct themselves if they had done wrong, he said. Madani and Sufiya
should prove their innocence in the case through the accepted methods,
Achuthanandan said.

At the same time, Madani himself sought to
wriggle out of the issue of the bus-burning case through his statements
during his ten-day Satyameva Jayate Kerala march being held to garner
votes for the LDF. At Kollam he said that Majeed Parampayi, fifth
accused in the bus-burning case, had no relations with the PDP but that
he was actually a Congressman.

Madani said that Majeed had been
expelled from the PDP two years before the terror act in Kalamassery.
He had been a Congress worker later and it was K Sudhakaran, Congress
MLA from Kannur, who had enrolled him in his party, Madani claimed.

Majeed
had told the police as back as in 2005 that Sufiya had conceived,
planned and got executed the burning of the Tamil Nadu State bus at
Kalamassery as a retaliatory act for the torture on Madani at the
Coimbatore prison. He had also said that Sufiya had paid him Rs 20,000
after the operation.

Observers said Madani’s new urgency to
disown Majeed was the result of the pressures of the situation after
the Aluva court’s directive to the Kalamasssery police to investigate
in detail about the alleged role of Sufiya. They said he had earlier
claimed that Majeed had not given any statement against Sufiya
voluntarily.

The PDP chairman had at a Press conference last
week in Thiruvananthapuram said that the statement against his wife had
been written down by the police themselves after getting a white paper
signed by Majeed using torture in custody.

Even as the Chief
Minister wanted the Home department to take action in Madani’s case,
the Pinarayi Vijayan camp in the State CPI(M) continued its efforts to
justify the poll alliance with the PDP and to describe the Congress-led
UDF as an unethical entity which would do anything to get some votes.

Pinarayi-camper
and Cooperation Minister G Sudhakaran tried in Alappuzha to justify the
alliance with Madani while the CPI(M) State secretary himself unleashed
an attack against the UDF in Idukki. Sudhakaran said the UDF, by
criticising the LDF for its alliance with Madani, was effectively
upholding the slogans of the BJP.

At an election meeting held
for UDF candidate Francis George of the Kerala Congress (J) in Idukki
on Sunday, Pinarayi Vijayan alleged that the Congress-led UDF had
degenerated into the level of a party that would do any immoral act if
there were “four votes” to win.

He said this with reference to
the announcement of the Popular Front of India (formerly NDF) that it
would support the UDF in 18 of the total 20 seats in the State.
Pinarayi said the Congress which was making arrangements with outfits
like the NDF had nt been able to adopt an uncompromising attitude even
in the national level.

Responses