Coming down heavily on annihilation of political rivals by hiring contract killers, the Kerala High Court on Friday observed that political patronising of criminals is assuming alarming propositions in the state.
“Is this the type of politics that is envisaged in a democratic set-up,” the court asked. Justice P Bhavadasan made the observation while dismissing the bail pleas of CPM Thiruvangad local committee secretary Karayi Chandrasekharan and former Kannur district secretariat member Karayi Rajan, the seventh and the eighth accused, respectively, in the Thalassery Fasal murder case. “Political parties, instead of weeding the criminals out, seem to be encouraging them. Judicial propriety and restraints prevent the court from saying anything further. One can only lament at the recent trends in politics. Annihilation of rival party workers is on the increase, so courts are called upon to be very careful in such cases. Such acts of brutality are indeed threat to the society and amount to open challenge of law,” the court observed.
The contention that a person who has little concern about other’s life and liberty can proclaim that he should be ensured his personal freedom as envisaged by the Constitution is unacceptable, the court pointed out.
Just because the victim in the case chose to disassociate himself from the party does not mean that the parent party should be belligerent and intolerant to him even if his disassociation and subsequent campaign might be against its interests. The court pointed out a statement made by a police officer, who is a witness, that it was a general practice in Kannur district that after a political murder, a party supplies a list of names to the police. Rajan’s visit to the railway station to welcome a Minister on September 22, 2006 was quite unusual, he said. Another witness said that Chandrasekharan had asked him to mention the name of one Shaji, who had defected from the party, as an accused in the case. Later Shaji died under mysterious circumstances.
The witnesses told the court that the CPM had given names of three persons and it could not have been given without the consent of Karayis. The court observed that the evidence are not only suggestive of the knowledge and consent of the petitioners in the incident, but also their attempt to interfere with the proper investigation. They tried to put the blame on another political party despite of being aware of the CPM involvement, it added.