KASARGOD: Residents and Congress workers of Kalliyot were livid when a CPM delegation led by party district secretary M V Balakrishnan and Lok Sabha member and senior party leader P Karunakaran visited the hamlet to take stock of the damage inflicted on the houses and shops of Marxist supporters.
Apart from the two leaders, CPM’s former district secretary K P Satheesh Chandran, MLAs K Kunhiraman and M Rajagopalan, former MLA C H Kunhambu and Kanhangad municipal chairman V V Rameshan reached Kalliyot Saturday morning amid heavy police protection.
Balakrishnan said they were visiting the houses of CPM supporters vandalised and set on fire after the murder of two Youth Congress workers. Party offices, a club, party memorial, and bus waiting shelter were also destroyed. “We had to go to the houses and shops to take stock of the damage and express our solidarity with the victims of the Congress vandalism,” he said.
However, when they reached Kalliyot, a large number of women and men surrounded them and raised hostile slogans. The police tried to defuse the situation, but the women asked the CPM members to go back. “You have taken two lives and are you going to expand the party by killing more? We have other children and they have to live,” a woman was heard shouting.
The protests were largely confined to Kalliyot junction, and the CPM leaders continued with their visit uninterrupted. The also visited the house of the main accused A Peethabaran, the CPM member who was expelled from the party after he was charged with murder in the case. His house was vandalised and set on fire by suspected Congress workers after the YC workers, Kripesh and Sarath Lal, were cremated. The team met with hostile sloganeering even when they tried to return.
Why does CM need my permission, asks Hakkim Kunnil
If the chief minister wanted to visit the houses of Kripesh and Sarath Lal, he could have done that, said Congress district president Hakkim Kunnil. “Why does he need my permission? Revenue minister E Chandrasekharan visited both the houses. There was no issue,” he said. No from the CM’s office contacted me for this purpose, he said.