Kollam: As the suicide of Sugathan has kicked off fresh debates between the CPI and the CPM in the Legislative Assembly, Sugathan’s son S. Sujith Kumar has reiterated that the local CPI – AIYF leaders had taken money from his father. Demanding an investigation by an independent agency, he also said an injury on the body of Sugathan, a wound below the knee of the left leg, might be a sign he was manhandled before his death.
“I suspect the party workers attempted to murder my father. The wound on the left leg below the knee has not been mentioned in the inquest report, which I have spotted in the photographs taken during the inquest. The family was not in any sort of financial crisis (for him to be driven to suicide) and the death was due to the torture by these politicians,” Sujith Kumar said. “The politicians did not spare my father even after they had taken money to revoke the protest,” he added.
P. Sugathan, 65, of Alinkeezhil at Aikkarakonam was abroad for about 35 years working as an automobile mechanic in Muscat and returned to his hometown in Punalur and planned to start a workshop. He leased a property at Elambal, procured a permit from the local body and constructed a shed on the property spending nearly Rs 3 lakh.
Local leaders with the AIYF, the youth wing of the CPI, initiated a protest disrupting the construction works which allegedly triggered Sugathan’s suicide by hanging at the temporary workshop he had constructed. The AIYF had opposed starting the workshop alleging that it was illegal to use the land for commercial purposes as it was once a paddy field about ten years back.
