Murders force Marxists to go into hiding

The CPIM) has transformed itself over the years from a revolutionary party fighting to establish dictatorship of the proletariat to a democratic outfit not much averse to liberal ideas, but old habits die hard. Two of its senior leaders in Kerala have now gone underground for reasons quite different from those for which comrades used to go into hiding in the olden days.

MM Mani, CPI(M) Idukki district secretary, went into hiding three days back after the police registered a case against him over three murders committed 30 years back. PK Kunhananthan, member of the Panur area committee, is in hiding for the past several days as the police are searching for him in connection with the May 4 murder of rebel leader TP Chandrasekharan.

Even the senior functionaries of the CPI(M) at its Idukki district headquarters have “no idea” where their secretary for the past 25 years is. All his family knows is that he had left them three days back saying he was going to Thodupuzha, the largest town in the district, where he made the stunning disclosure publicly on May 25 that his party used to kill political enemies ruthlessly.

Mani went into hiding after a special team of the Kerala Police, constituted on the basis of his disclosure to investigate the murders he referred to, filed an FIR against him in the three specific murders he mentioned. Now, sources in the party say secretly that he would surface only after an anticipatory bail application is moved in the court.

Senior party functionaries in Idukki district swear that they do not know where Mani is but they are convinced of the need of his going underground because the UDF Government was trying to trap him as part of its political programme. Posters have appeared at several places in the district praising Mani as a great leader of the working class.

However, the absence of the chief did not prevent the CPI(M) district committee in Idukki from organizing meetings in all the 105 local committees under it to explain the “truth” of what Mani had said, how the “right-wing” media had “distorted” it and how the Congress-led UDF was using it for its political designs with the help of the police force.

Reports from Kozhikode said that a team of officials from the Kerala Police was already in Karnataka looking for PK Kunhananthan, member of the Panur area committee of the CPI(M) in Kannur district. Kunhananthan, accused of taking part in a conspiracy hatched in his area committee to kill rebel leader Chandrasekharan, had gone into hiding at least ten days ago.

Like in the case of Mani, Kunhananthan’s family too has no information about his whereabouts. Some days back, family members had told the police that he had not gone into hiding but had gone to Bangalore on some business matter but the police did not believe them. Reports said that the police knew that he was in Bangalore but by the time they moved, he had moved out of there.

Meanwhile, CPI(M)’s Kozhikode district secretary TP Ramakrishnan filed a petition in the Kerala High Court on Wednesday against certain media organizations that published reports quoting statements of some of its arrested leaders on the Chandrasekharan murder and the police who allegedly leaked out such information to the media.

In the petition, Ramakrishnan said that disclosure of statements by arrested persons in a case in which trial had not begun and publication of such information in the media amounted to contempt of court as per a 2010 order of the High Court and the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.