Police bias: RSS bandh in Thalassery today

The RSS has declared a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Thalassery on Monday in protest to the police charge sheeting three RSS workers in the murder of the CPI(M) worker KP Jijesh a couple of months ago.

The CPI(M) district secretary P Sasi had called on the people of Thalassery to reject the hartal call and has charged that the State level leaders of the BJP and the RSS were directly involved in the murder.

The RSS had earlier denied any involvement of its workers in the murder and the then Kannur SP, Manoj Abraham had earlier almost cracked the case and had cleared of the involvement of the RSS workers in the case.

The police after investigating on the RSS links had then put on the blame against the NDF as the killing of the NDF worker Faisal in 2006 had taken at the same place and the culprits were CPI(M) workers.

After the arrest of the CPI(M) workers there was a rift in the local unit of the party and the CPI(M) men had then come out in public against the State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who was the Thalassery MLA of the CPI(M). The murder of Faisal had taken place close to the residence of Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and the Minister had on reaching the mortuary premises declared that the RSS was behind the killing of Faisal and the NDF had taken out a violent protest march in Thalassery town against the RSS. However the local leaders of the NDF had then charged the CPI(M) for the murder and finally the police had to arrest three CPI(M) workers as the Islamic fundamentalist outfit had taken out several protest marches in Thriuvananthapuram and Kannur.

The arrest of CPI(M) workers in that case had created a sense of insecurity among the local CPI(M) men and a group of hardcore party workers had turned out against Kodiyeri and there were protest marches against the Minister. Posters had also come out in Thalassery town following this arrest and the local CPI(M) men were divided into two over this .

The murdered Jijesh had come out against the Minister and the local CPI(M) leadership in the issue and the local people has alleged that Jijesh was openly mouthing comments against the Minister in all available forums and there were even clashes between the CPI(M) workers on this issue.

The police under Manoj Abraham was following these links when the SP was unceremoniously transferred back to Kochi as city police commissioner. The CPI(M) had taken out several marches and had charged the RSS and the BJP of orchestrating this murder. The CPI(M) State secretary had in his fiery speech in Thalassery called upon the CPI(M) men to retort and give the RSS and its associate organisations and their leaders the return with interest and compound interest had included the murder of Jijesh in the list of persons killed by the RSS men.

The recent killings in Thalassery in which five RSS workers and two CPI(M) workers lost their lives was the result of this speech of the CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. He had also called upon the killing of Jijesh as part of the RSS conspiracy and the CPI(M) had retorted its killing spree by attacking the RSS local leader MP Sumesh who was highly popular among the local people and Sangh cadres.