THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Incensed over the allegedly CPM- doctored, ‘Taliban’ model murder of Youth Congress leader Shuhaib and the failure of the police to nab the killers even after five days, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy demanded Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan abdicate the Home portfolio immediately.
He also referred to the incident in which a pregnant woman was kicked below the abdomen allegedly by CPM men and said the scenario in the state was even a child in a mother’s womb was unsafe.
"The silence of the Chief Minister in the heinous murder of the youth and a mother losing her child, even when he finds time to respond on movie lyrics, leaves all wonder struck and creates fear. The police are incapable to quell violence and forestall political murders. It is unable to act even after something untoward happens, as functional freedom is not given now. Orders are seemingly coming to the police from certain quarters other than in the government, raising doubts on the very control and command of the Chief Minister over the police. Pinarayi is not giving any hope to people. He has lost his moral right to hold the Home portfolio,’’ Chandy told reporters.
He said the delay in nabbing the killers of Shuhaib was intentional to get the ‘CPM list of accused’ so that the real culprits are let off. “There will be no compromise from the Congress and the UDF in booking the ‘real culprits’. The government is free to fix any agency it deems fit to find the culprits. But they should be the ‘real’ ones. Those behind the conspiracy behind the ‘Taliban model’ murder should also be brought before law,’’ he demanded. Nothing else but full involvement of CPM leadership can be presumed from the timeline of events which led to Shuhaib’s murder and the killers getting ample time to escape, he alleged.
"Days before the murder, the CPM cadre made war cries of eliminating Shuhaib. There was no dispute or altercation with him before bombs were hurled at him. Even after he was killed, the gang hacked him repeatedly, as they had done with RMP leader T P Chandrasekharan. It is unheard of in Kerala and beyond everyone’s tolerance,’’ Chandy said, maintaining the Congress and the UDF will spearhead a statewide campaign against the politics of violence and killings.
He also smelled a rat in the wasting of precious time by police even after getting information on Shuhaib’s murder within minutes. “There was an inordinate delay in the police reaching the scene. They did not seal the routes leading out of Kannur, even after details were made known of a white car in which the killers had fled,” he said.
Chandy said of the scores of political murders which took place under the present government, 10 occurred in Pinarayi’s home district. On a public-media perception that the top leadership of the LDF and the UDF often enters into a tacit deal to obliterate the conspiracy angle and the role played by top leaders, at some point of time while investigation / trial in political murders are underway, the TP murder case being often referred to in this context, the former Chief Minister rejected it. ‘’In the TP case, a stage had reached then before the matter came up in the court. Why aren’t you forgetting that the conspirators in the Fazal murder case and Ariyil Shukoor killing were brought to book when the UDF government was in power?” he asked.