KOCHI: Four police officers and six Youth Congress workers were injured when a march taken out by Kerala Students Union (KSU)-Youth Congress workers to the office of the Kalamassery circle inspector turned violent on Tuesday.
The march was taken out at around 1 pm to condemn police high-handedness against protesters who took to the streets decrying tax hikes proposed in the state budget.
The police blocked the march about 1 km ahead of the station.
According to the police, the protesters turned violent without any provocation, and some of them started pelting stones at the policemen, forcing them to wield lathi. Four police officers, Kannan, Sanooj, Sunil, and Miljit Kumar were injured and admitted to a private hospital.
Meanwhile, MLA and Youth Congress state president Shafi Parambil and Ernakulam DCC president Mohammed Shiyas are staging a sit-in protest at the Kalamassery police station demanding medical treatment to the injured workers as the police brutally lathi-charged them without any provocation.
Protesters Paul, Ansion, Arjun, Amar, Unnikrishnan, and Jithin suffered injuries when the police resorted to lathi charges to disperse the protesters.
The injured were admitted to the Government Medical College hospital at Kalamassery.
Shafi, who inaugurated the march, left the venue and returned to the police station after hearing that police brutally attacked the workers. The police allegedly wielded lathi at the leaders including Shafi who protested in front of the station.
"One of our activists' hand was fractured in the lathi charge. However, the police denied him medical treatment. They are beating up the workers without any provocation to sabotage the protest against the state government. Here, the workers have not hurled any stones against the officers, or police vehicles. The police assaulted the workers who protested peacefully," said Shafi.
DCC president Mohammed Riyas alleged that the police wielded lathi against even people's representatives. "The lathi used to beat Shafi broke into two pieces. The police are brutally attacking the workers," he added.
Later, T J Vinodh MLA and Uma Thomas MLA arrived at the police station and held talks with the police officers.