THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Agitated over the arrest of its state president Rahul Mamkoottathil in connection with the violence during the Secretariat march on December 20, the Youth Congress staged state-owned protests, including a blockade of the National Highways.
Rahul was arrested in an early morning swoop down by the Cantonment police following which the Youth Congress activists hit the streets in protest.
The activists blocked roads at Chavara in Kollam, Kannur and Malappuram and laid siege to a police station in Palakkad.
Protests were also held in all the district headquarters which were led by senior Congress leaders and representatives.
In the state capital, the Youth Congress workers blocked the police vehicle when Rahul was transferred to Fort Taluk Hospital for medical examination. The protestors led by Youth Congress district president Nemom Shajeer blocked the vehicle from moving forward even as the cops tried to push them away.
Shajeer said the police were keeping them in the dark about where they were going to take Rahul.
"They are not telling us where they are taking him to. We don't know whether they are taking him to the police torture room.or.any other place. We will continue to protest the police's high-handedness, " he said.
Rahul himself had a war of words with the police when he was brought to the station. Rahul got irked when Cantonment Inspector B M Shafi tried to force him into the vehicle. The incident set off a heated argument between the two.
Rahul was arrested as he is the fourth accused in a case that was registered on December 20. He was arraigned as an accused of the destruction of public property, attacking cops and obstructing their duty. The secretariat march organized by the Youth Congress on December 20 had culminated in a pitched street fight between its members and police as the state capital virtually turned into a combat zone. Several policemen and Youth Congress workers sustained injuries in the violence that erupted during the march that was organized in protest against the attack on KSU and YC workers, who had raised opposition to the Nava Kerala programme.
The march was led by senior Congress leaders including Opposition Leader V D Satheesan. Following the speech of the senior Congress leaders, the police tried to disperse the protestors. As they did not pay heed to the cops, the police used water cannons on them. Some of the protestors, including women, tried to trespass into the Secretariat compound.
The scenario turned worse when the police began arresting the protestors. The irate Youth Congress workers tried to block the police vehicles in which the detained protestors were taken away. They damaged the glasses of a police bus and vandalized a few police shields. The cops resorted to a lathi-charge in which several YC leaders, including state president Rahul Mamkoottathil were injured.
The protest reached its crescendo when the cops allegedly manhandled some of the women protestors. Those women were allegedly poked with lathis, which further infuriated the agitators. The protestors, meanwhile, waylaid the police vehicles and forcefully released the detainees.
The second episode of the violence unfurled in front of the DCC office when the cops tried to barge in after the YC members allegedly released their compatriots from the police bus. The cops alleged that the men, who orchestrated the act, were hiding in the party office and they wanted to enter inside to apprehend them.
Satheesan and other senior leaders rushed to the office and announced that the cops wouldn't be let in.
The violence unfurled in the state capital on the eve of the Navakerala Sadas' entry to the district.