Thiruvananthapuram: Home minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan has come under serial attack yet again from party colleagues, the latest being a purported failure of officials in preventing the Chandrasekharan murder accused from accessing mobile phones in Kozhikode jail and posting their pictures on Facebook.
Soon after TV channels put out the exposes, Kannur strongman K. Sudhakaran, MP, urged chief minister Oommen Chandy and party president Ramesh Chennithala to convene the party meeting to discuss the turn of events.
Kannur DCC president K. Surendran has openly asked Radhakrishnan to step down and return Home to the CM.
Jail authorities scoured the jail insides for clues but in vain. Jail ADGP Alexander Jacob doubted the veracity of visuals of FB postings and call details aired by TV channels but party leaders were livid over what they perceived to be the home minister’s list of lapses.
Day’s developments started with channels beaming visuals of FB pictures of hardened criminals, especially of Kodi Suni, Kirmani Manoj and Mohammed Shafi. Chandy, who arrived from Delhi, declined to comment, saying he was not posted with details.
Radhakrishnan said a high-level team of home secretary L. Radhakrishnan, DGP K.S. Balasubramanian and Alexander Jacob will probe. But he countered the criticism, saying those baying for his blood eyed his chair.
Radhakrishnan ordered another raid of the Kozhikode jail to leave no stone unturned before his high-profile visit to the jail on Tuesday. He would have to face his own party men, who have many questions that he can find answers for.
Ever since he took over as Home Minister on April 13, 2012, Radhakrishnan has had a string of embarrassments: the police arrested former Chandy aide Tenny Joppan the day the CM returned from Bahrain with the UN trophy.
Chandy suffered an incident of stone-pelting during a meet in Kannur and the police department was shame-faced when TPC murder accused P Mohanan lunched with wife K K Lathika, MLA, at a hotel en route to the jail.
The latest was the Chief Minister having to wait at the airport like an ordinary passenger for his relations to hurry up with a vehicle caught in a traffic jam. This and much more are enough ammunition for his detractors to demand his scalp at the emergent party meeting.
Next: FB posts upset Thiruvanchoor
FB posts upset Thiruvanchoor
Thiruvananthapuram: Trouble is again brewing for Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan with visuals suggesting that the accused in the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case have unfettered freedom in the district jail here.
Some of the visuals of FB posts with uploaded photographs taken from prison by the murder accused Krimani Manoj and Muhammed Shafi were on Monday telecast by news channels indicating unbridled use of costly mobile phones with internet connectivity in prison.
In some of the photographs which were uploaded till Sunday, the accused were seen wearing shorts and tea shirts. The pictures included those of Onam celebration in the jail in which the accused play Maveli.
Some were shown wearing cooling glasses. About 800 calls were reportedly made from mobile phones. Though the police conducted raids in the prison soon after the expose, no phones were found.
Earlier, there were reports that a section of jail officials had colluded with the prisoners ensuring them all comforts. The role of some jail officials in allowing connectivity to the prisoners is now clear. Though the accused manhandled a jail staff member, the authorities hushed up the case.
DIG (North zone), N. Shanker Reddy, visited the jail in the evening and collected details.
Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, who is already under attack by a section of Congress leaders for the controversies related to the Home Department, announced a probe team comprising home secretary, DGP (law and order) and DGP (jails) ahead of his visit to the district jail on Tuesday.
RMP activists took out a march to the district jail demanding immediate action against the guilty officials.
K.K. Rema, wife of the late T.P. Chandrasekharan, said that the expose once again had proved the collusion of jail authorities with the murder accused.
“Prison days are not a punishment for these culprits but a time of rest and leisure,” she said. “Keeping phones is just one instance of the freedom they enjoy,” she added.
Next: KPCC criticizes jail officials
KPCC criticizes jail officials
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress leaders have criticised the authorities of the Kozhikode district jail from where the accused in the T. P. Chandrasekharan murder case posted pictures on the Facebook. KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala said the incident has to be dealt with seriously. The Home Department should have been more vigilant in the matter, he said.
Chennithala said, “there is a CPM faction working inside the jail. The government should bring the guilty to book. Jail rules are being violated time and again,” he said at a press meet here after the state-level manifesto committee meeting.
Congress MP K. Sudhakaran and T. N. Prathapan MLA said it was a gross violation of rules by the jail authorities. Sudhakaran wondered whether the UDF leaders were helping the LDF. Oherwise, how could the accused in the jail post pictures on social networking sites, he asked.
Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said in Kottayam that a team led by the DGP, home secretary and the jail DGP will probe the issue.
“The trial in the TPC case is going on. If the accused are doing things like this inside the jail, the court can imagine what they will do once they come out of the jail,” Radhakrishnan said. Nobody will be allowed to behave unruly in the jail, he added.
Chennithala also demanded a probe into the Chakkittapara land mining issue. “A foolproof investigation is needed to find out how a mining company which has links to the Bellary Reddy brothers got licence,” he said.
