KOCHI: The CPM-led Left Democratic Front government has landed the party in a major embarrassment by submitting an affidavit in the High Court stating that A. Varghese, a leader of the Naxalite movement killed in a fake encounter in Wayanad on February 18, 1970, was a notorious criminal. The affidavit has also stated that Varghese was shot dead in an encounter and was not killed after being captured alive as was stated by a CBI probe. The content of the affidavit is completely against the position held by the CPM in this regard all these years. Veteran E.M.S. Namboodirippad the late CPM leader himself had stated in Kerala Assembly that Varghese was killed in a ‘fake encounter’.
He also sought a judicial probe into the incident during a public meet at Mananthavady to prot-est the killing in 1970. The CPM leadership and party organs such as Deshabhimani daily were known to debunk the encounter theory on several occasions in the past and never lost an opportunity to blame some prominent newspapers in Malayalam which had carried the government version of the encounter. Human Right activists and large number of pro-Left intellectuals have condemned the affidavit and urged the government to make immediate steps to withdraw the same.
Varghese, a CPM activist and secretary of the Kannur district committee office, left CPM and joined the Naxalites and was the main organiser of the movement in Waynad. “The affidavit is extremely deplorable and should be withdrawn forthwith,” said Janakeeya Manushyavakasa Prasthanam. Left fellow traveller Najmal Babu (T.N. Joy) said the affidavit is similar is to the one filed by Mamata Banerjee government against political prisoners in West Bengal and CPM and CPI should take corrective steps immediately. CPM supporters on social media remained conspicuous by their silence in the matter.
