ALAPPUZHA: The district administration has rescheduled the all-party meeting called to defuse the tension prevailing in Alappuzha following the twin murders of a state leader each of SDPI and BJP to Tuesday. The decision was taken after BJP leaders protested strongly against holding the meeting on Monday even as OBC Morcha state secretary Renjith Sreenivasan’s cremation got delayed.
The administration also extended the prohibitory orders declared in the district under Section 144 of CrPC till 6am on Wednesday after the district police chief submitted a report stating that there are chances of tension boiling over in certain places.
District Collector A Alexander had announced on Sunday that an all-party meeting would be held at 3pm on Monday. Ministers Saji Cheriyan and P Prasad were to attend it. On Monday, he changed the time to 5pm. However, the strong protest by BJP forced the collector to postpone the meeting to 4pm on Tuesday.
BJP state president K Surendran said the state government and police showed disrespect to Renjith’s body. “Neither the district administration nor any state government official discuss the all-party meet with the BJP. “The postmortem of Renjith was delayed by one day citing the delay in getting the Covid test result on Sunday. The body was also kept in the mortuary which had no freezing facility. Since the postmortem examination was delayed purposely, Renjith’s cremation was also delayed,” Surendran said.
At the same time, the state government and police had made all arrangements for the funeral of the slain SDPI leader on time on Sunday itself, he alleged. “Nobody spoke to us before fixing the meeting at 3pm and later postponing it to 5pm. There was no surety on when the postmortem examination would be completed. The body was to be placed at various places for the public to pay homage.
Hence, the district administration’s decision to convene the all-party meeting on Monday was not acceptable to BJP. We are not against peaceful coexistence of people,” Surendran added. Party district president M V Gopakumar also condemned the move to convene the all-party meet without discussing it with BJP. “The party could not fix the time of the funeral as the postmortem was delayed. The government and police delayed the postmortem, showing disrespect to our leader,” he said.