The police team that conducted searches at CPM villages in Kannur comprised 200 cops, including four circle inspectors and 30 sub inspectors.Kannur: A 200-member police team, led by Kannur district police chief G Siva Vikram, has launched a massive manhunt in the CPM strongholds in Kannur to locate and arrest the accused in the murder of Youth Congress leader Shuhaib at Edayannur.
The search assumes significance as the hamlets where the police have landed up are known as 'party villages,' or traditional CPM strongholds where the party leaders call the shots.
The police team, comprising four inspectors and 30 sub-inspectors, were covering places under the limits of the Maloor and Mukkannur police stations, where the accused in the TP Chandrasekharan murder case stayed underground before their arrest.
Unconfirmed reports said the policemen and the DPC were in riot gear. The mass mobilization of the force and the unprecedented manner in which the police moved ahead with the 'search and locate' operation has invoked a general curiosity.
Youth Congress block secretary Shuhaib, 30, was brutally hacked to death by a gang Monday night. The Congress had voiced its protest against alleged police apathy in finding the culprits and slammed chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan for his inefficiency in handling the home department.
Leader of the opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Friday alleged that some of the convicts in the TP Chandrasekharan murder case were granted parole ahead of the murder of Shuhaib, raising suspicions about their role in the crime.
Congress leader K Sudhakaran has announced a hunger strike from Monday seeking speedy probe into the murder.
Chennithala urged the chief minister to relinquish the home portfolio, alleging that he had not allowed the police to function independently in the state. "The arrest of the murderers" is delayed due to the "interference" of the chief minister's office," he alleged. He also favored a CBI probe into the incident.
