Enemy Iis at the gates
The arrest of eight suspected IS activists from Kanakamala in Kannur who were plotting to carry out terror attacks in South India and the missing of 21 people, including children who left Kerala to join IS in Syria, indicate the growing tentacles of the terrorist outfit in the state.
Being a state which has close links with West Asian countries, considering the large settlement of Malayalis in GCC and countries like Yemen and Libya right from 1970s, the terror modules has been finding it easy to establish their network in the state.
The enforcement agencies have been after the terror modules of LeT and IM in the state which have largely preferred to remain underground in the state and carry out missions in other parts of the country. Investigation into the terror modules in Kerala in the last five years had revealed that it was the young who get lured into the fundamentalist group either for easy money or affinity to take up holy war.
The NIA which conducted the probe had found that Subahani Haja Moideen, who had fought for IS in Iraq, was a native of Thodupuzha in Idukki district and he was instrumental in establishing a network of IS operatives. Apart from Subahani, the NIA also tracked the activities of Sajeer Abdulla Mangalaseri from Kozhikode who was said to be the chief of the IS network in Kerala.
Long wait for justice
Sending a shock wave across the state, Supreme Court sentenced Govindachamy, the convict in Soumya murder case, to life imprisonment setting aside the death penalty awarded to him in the 2011 case. The court said it has not been proved that threw the victim out of the moving train or inflicted fatal injuries during the sexual assault that led to her death.
A bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi upheld the rape charge against Govindachamy but exonerated him of the murder charge, pointing out there were witnesses who testified that the victim had tried to escape by jumping off the moving train. The bench said, the circumstantial evidence was not strong enough to say that Govindachamy had intention or knowledge that Soumya could suffer fatal injuries to specific body parts during the assault.
Later in the year, former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju who criticised the Supreme Court judges saying that they committed an error in judgment in dispensing the case, offered unconditional apology to Justice Ranjan Gogoi in connection with the Soumya rape case. An apex court bench of justices Gogoi, Prafulla C Pant and Uday Umesh Lalit had issued a show cause notice to Justice Katju asking him “why contempt proceedings should not be drawn up” him.
Exodus of KC(M) from UDF
Kerala Congress(M) ended the 35-year-old relationship with Congress and decided to sever its ties with the United Democratic Front (UDF) for all practical purposes and its six MLAs will form a separate bloc in the Assembly, two months after winning elections as the candidates of the Front. However, the party which has two MPs, one each in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, will extend issue-based support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
According to party chairman K M Mani, certain persons in the Congress leadership were treating KC(M) as ‘enemy No 1.’ In the Assembly, the act from its third largest partner reduced the number of UDF constituents to three and its members to 41 while increasing the number of blocs to five, a first in the history of the state.
Rail passengers taken for a ride
The passengers of the Mangaluru-bound Malabar Express had a miraculous escape when 12 bogies of the train derailed at Karukutty, disrupting rail traffic in Kerala. A possible major collision was also averted as the Thiruvananthapuram mail from Chennai towards Ernakulam was stopped around 300 metres away from the accident spot following a timely alert.
The derailment occurred at 2.55 am shortly after the Malabar Express left Aluva station and was running at a slow speed. There was no casualty and all passengers were taken to Thrissur for their onward journey.
Watery grave
Six youths who were taking bath in a river near Kuttiyadi, around 50 km from Kozhikode, drowned following flash floods. Those drowned were part of a nine-member group who had gone to take bath in the river. When they ventured into the river to take bath, the water level was very low. Suddenly, the water level rose and they were washed away.
Dogged by the menace
The dog menace with a population of 2.5 lakh strays hogged the limelight once again with a 65-year-old woman being mauled to death by a large pack on a suburban beach nearby Kanjiramkulam in Thiruvananthapuram. The hapless woman, Siluvamma, a resident of the coastal belt, was attacked on Pulluvila beach, according to her family. As per the statistics submitted in the state Assembly, highest number of dog bites during June, July and August was reported from Thiruvananthapuram district with 6,042, followed by Palakkad (4,305) and Kollam (4,123).
The great flight escape
The passengers and crew escaped unhurt as Emirates airliner EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai crash-landed and caught fire in Dubai resulting in four-hour shutdown of the busy airport. However, Jasim Al Beloushi from Ras Al Khaimah, a firefighter lost his life. There were 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board -- 226 of whom were Indians, 24 British and 11 Emirati nationals. While dramatic images of the aircraft engulfed in flames, with thick black smoke billowing from it, were circulated on social media, video footage capturing scenes of panic inside the plane has also emerged. The Emirates Airlines had announced a compensation of USD 7,000 to all passengers.
Fatal prescription
More than nine years after he slipped into coma after testing a medicine he had prescribed to a patient, P A Baiju an ayurveda practitioner from a government dispensary in Bison Valley of Idukki district passed away. He consumed the medicine, not knowing that it had been poisoned by the patient’s husband following a domestic brawl to kill his wife, in January 2007.