THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Assembly on Wednesday witnessed Opposition MLAs taking the government to task for what they called “state terror” being unleashed against political opponents.
Participating in a discussion on demands for grants in the 2018-19 Budget for police and jail departments, senior Congress member Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan brought a grenade, whose expiry date had passed, to the House claiming that it was the one used against Youth Congress workers who had staged a protest march in front of the Secretariat last week against the murder of SL Shuhaib.
He asked the Chief Minister to take action against the police officers who was responsible for using the grenade. As Thiruvanchoor’s move triggered a heated debate, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan asked him to table the grenade.
When he obliged, the CM said that the grenade brought to the House was not the one used against the Youth Congress workers and was probably used elsewhere. He also furnished the details of the batch number and manufacturing date of the grenades used on February 26.
Muslim League’s P Ubaidulla said going by the trend, the CPM will be relegated to an outfit confined only to Kannur in the near future.