People's Democracy

KERALA

 

 

People-friendly Policing Ensures

Model Law & Order Situation

 

Pinarayi Vijayan

 

IT is the major responsibility of a government to ensure peaceful living conditions by maintaining proper law and order situation. The central government shows serious laxity in accomplishing this obligation. It on the one hand imposes the neo-liberal policies, the dictates of the imperialist driven institutions and causes unparalleled misery to the common people. And on the other hand, it shows serious negligence in dealing with the menace of communalism, extremism and terrorism. 

 

Unprecedented and frequent hike in petroleum prices and its deregulation caused disarray among the common people. In order to limit and curtail the welfare schemes, the central government slashed the BPL list by imposing illogical stipulations. It has no hesitation to dismantle public sector units on the lines of the neo-liberalism. Succumbing to the imperialist pressure, the foreign policy has been diluted and restructured and hence betrays the country’s glorious past traditions. Even the self reliance and sovereignty is under peril. The proposed Iran -Pakistan-India gas pipeline project was abandoned due to the US dictates. The same government was so eager to materialise the Indo-US nuclear deal and blatantly favors the US nuclear companies.

 

Maoist threat mounts in many regions and it is impossible for any state alone to confront and defeat the menace. Under such a situation it is the responsibility of the central government to rise to the occasion. Even the paramilitary forces appointed by the central government time and again are being killed in the Maoist terror. The central government miserably failed to deal with not only the Maoist terror but also the religious terrorist activities. Both the majority and minority communal outfits design to guide their activists towards the heinous activities of terror.

 

During the period of the UDF in Kerala the government had repeatedly failed to preserve the proper law and order situation in the state. It had also failed to protect the minorities. In Trichur district, a Christian priest Fr Job Chittilappalli was stabbed to death inside the church. Even though the police officer who had investigated the case had declared the role of five RSS activists in the murder and stated the arrest of three of them, finally succumbing before the RSS pressures, they had arrested a lunatic and paved the way for the escape of the culprits and hence the government became ridiculous by itself. In Thiruvananthapuram district, Neyyattinkara Bishop’s house was attacked during that period and in fact it was the local Congress activists who were behind the attack. The UDF government was not only reluctant to arrest the real culprits, but it had offered all assistance to the offenders. The church and its believers had to organise numerous protests against the then UDF government. Even the police was not hesitant to assault the priests and nuns within the churches. In 2005 July the police intruded in the Aluwaye St Peter’s Church in Eranakulam district and brutally assaulted hundreds of believers and even priests, nuns and aged men were not spared. Many of them were arrested and tortured in the AR camp at Kalamasserry.

 

In Thrissur district the police came to mediate a dispute related to a funeral ceremony, resorted to lathicharge on the believers inside the Lebanon church. More than 30 of them were seriously injured including seven priests in the police atrocity. Even the INFARM chairman Fr Mathew Vadakkemuri who went to meet the agriculture minister was arrested and locked up. In Kochi the police resorted to lathicharge in the Thiruvanioor Kanniyat church also. The Sangh Parivar outfits in Olavanna at Kozhikkode district had ruthlessly attacked the activists of the missionaries of charity including the nuns. Even though the heinous crime took place in the day time the administration had shown utmost negligence and carelessness in booking the Parivar criminals.

 

The UDF had always encouraged and used both the majority and minority communalism for its narrow political gains. Such an appeasement policy had resulted in numerous communal conflicts during the UDF regime.  Unlike the earlier period, 121 communal conflicts were reported in the state where 18 people were killed, 250 were seriously injured and 22 holy places were attacked in the violence. The government was not prepared to file the charge sheet against the culprits of the first Marad violence cropped up in Kozhikkode district. Moreover, the government had assigned the leadership to the same communal forces responsible for the first Marad violence for the peace and rehabilitation process and hence honored the perpetrators of communal violence.  Repeated intelligence reports of the Kerala and Tamilnadu intelligence wing regarding a possible violence in the area was blatantly neglected and even the local MLA’s caution was not being taken with due care and seriousness. After the massacre, the second Marad violence planned and executed by the minority communal elements, the Sangh Parivar took it as an opportunity to target and attack the entire Muslim community as a whole in the local area. The UDF government once again had shown its weakness in tackling the violence by using stringent measures. It had shamelessly succumbed to the conditions of the RSS and dignified the communal outfit. In its eagerness to surrender before the Sangh agenda the, secular parties were not being taken in to confidence and failed to facilitate them with the peace process. In fact such appeasing approach of the UDF regime resulted in far reaching consequences in the rise and emergence of the communal and extremist outfits in the state.      

 

The UDF government at that time even had failed to send the ministers to the affected area. It had ridiculously depended on the ‘generosity’ of the RSS to bring back the victims who were driven away from their houses and made refugees by the Sangh outfit. And thus the UDF government had created a milieu for the communal outfits to flourish and maneuver. Even the government had shown utmost carelessness and neglect to arrest the criminals in the E K Nayanar murder attempt conspiracy case. It had never hesitated to withdraw numerous criminal cases charged against the NDF (presently Popular Front) activists. Mafia culture and goon elements were prevalent in the state during those days. Presently such an appalling state has been changed as a result of the persistent effort of the LDF government. It is undisputable that the state administration today is not in the clutches of the communal outfits as during the UDF time. The India Today in its survey had selected and ranked Kerala as a top state in the country so far as law and order situation is concerned.  The UDF government could not table the Marad enquiry commission report in the state assembly but the present government tabled the report without any hesitance. The police force and state investigating agency is so vigilant to book the culprits in many cases including numerous notorious murder cases in which the investigation was at disarray. Rigorous legal actions were taken against the bogus saints who indulged in ‘spiritual trade’ and self-declared ‘godman’ and their fraudulent acts were exposed.

 

Stringent law has been enacted to detain the goons and habitual criminals. Immediately after the presence of terror links with the national and international terrorist organizations, severe and stern actions were taken to uproot the terror elements in the state. Criminal cases were registered on the basis of the information on the SIMI camp in Binanipuram and Vagamon camp with terror links. After the incident of the killing of the four Malayalee youth in Kashmir by the security forces the state police and investigating agencies rose to the occasion and intervened to prevent terror incidents by defeating the plan and strategy of the terrorist outfits. Immediately after the incident of chopping off the hand of a college lecturer, its links with the extremist organisation Popular Front which has been exposed in the police inquiry and the criminals were brought before the law. The calculated and concerted effort of the communal-terrorist forces to disrupt the communal harmony in the state has been arrested thanks to the obstinate steps being taken by the state administration. While the UDF government shamelessly succumbed to the communal forces as part of their appeasement policy, the present LDF government has shown unbending will to contend with such forces posing threat to the secular fabric of our country.  And hence the LDF government in Kerala once again shows the way to the whole country in protecting the life and livelihood of the people by properly maintaining the law and order situation and safeguard the unity and secularism in the state.

 

Instances of violence and atrocities against women have never come up in the state like during the last UDF government’s tenure. After the Muthanga firing incident numerous instances of atrocities against women were reported in the state during that period. Such cases were not properly investigated and perpetrators were never punished and the UDF government and the investigating agencies had handled such cases with utmost negligence. The LDF government immediately after assuming office intensified investigations related with violence against women and many women trafficking gangs were arrested and stringent actions were taken in such cases. Self proclaimed ‘godmen’ like Santhosh Madhavan were arrested who indulge in trafficking of women under the pretext of ‘spiritual trade’.

 

The LDF government included 10 per cent women police personell in each police station. In order to investigate cyber crimes, the Cyber Cell was formed during this period. In costal areas costal vigil committees are formed with the help of fishermen and their organisations to assist the police. The state government introduced the community policing system, set up vigilance committees in selected educational institutions to ensure safety of girls and a concrete plan has been made to transform the police force into being more people friendly. No doubt all such efforts will make the government to claim that it introduced a policy of people friendly policing and regain the state from the clutches of mafias, goons and sex rackets.  

 

(To be continued)