KOZHIKODE: Kannur once again is posing a challenge to law and order and policing in the state as rivals continue revenge attacks and blame each other for escalation of violence.
Senior leaders of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) take no initiative to stop it as they are scary of condemning deeds of their cadres.
On the contrary, their words only encourage continued attacks. “They first damaged their party office and accused the RSS/BJP cadre of doing it,” BJP district secretary K. Ranjith, whose house also came under attack the other day, told DC.
“We have video recordings available with us where one can see a CPM branch secretary along with his aides destroying the party office. It's a pre-planned move to target BJP/RSS cadres. Unless CPM stops its politics of violence, peace can never return to Kannur.”
In the history of political violence here, he said, the CPM always remained a party on one side while the rivals changed.
“It could be BJP/RSS, Congress, Muslim League or Popular Front,” he said. “The BJP has shown a great level of self-restraint whenever it was targeted.”
CPM district secretary P. Jayarajan, however, scoffed at the accusations saying the police records would tell the truth.
“They started it all, and our party condemns the attack on houses. They are trying to gain political mileage by perpetrating violence. Houses of CPM leaders have been attacked,” he said.
“They even attacked a house where wedding preparations were on and targeted even women. Police had registered 20 cases on the basis of our complaint where houses of cadres were attacked. They attacked our houses even today”.
He said the anti-CPM forces had joined hands to target CPM. “BJP and Popular Front joined to accuse CPM of unleashing violence. They have now become birds of the same feather,” Mr Jayarajan said. Kannur district collector P. Balakiran has called the leaders for a peace talks on Tuesday evening.
