Thiruvananthapuram: The three-hour Assembly debate on custodial torture on Tuesday ended with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan adopting a holier-than-thou attitude and stopping just short of defending the police and the UDF, in turn, declaring a strike in the Assembly till the cops involved in the custodial torture of Youth Congress leader Sujith were dismissed from service. 

Right after the debate, two UDF MLAs Saneesh Kumar (Congress's Chalakkudy MLA) and AKM Ashraf (Muslim League's Manjeshwar MLA) began an indefinite agitation in front of the entrance of the Assembly hall. The UDF also boycotted the day's proceedings.

The UDF strategy was to list a series of custodial torture cases that came to light after the CCTV visuals of Sujith's torture by five policemen of Kunnamkulam police station went viral. CCTV visuals from Peechi Police Station, again from 2023, had emerged in which the police was seen roughing up the staff and manager of a hotel. The Station House Officer P M Ratheesh had also allegedly sought a bribe of ₹5 lakh to settle the issue. There was the death of soldier Thomson Thankachan who was found dead in his house in Kundara, Kollam, in 2024, days after he was taken into custody. His mother has sought CCTV visuals. Then there was the plight of dalit woman Bindhu who had suffered the worst forms of indignity at Peroorkada Police Station in Thiruvananthapuram where she was brought in falsely accused of theft. There was also the recent case of Amal Antony of Muvattupuzha, who was falsely accused by the police of inverter battery theft.

The UDF speakers mentioned even local CPM and DYFI leaders who were victims of the wanton ways of Pinarayi's police. Congress MLA Roji M John, who moved the adjournment motion quoted DYFI's Ernakulam district secretary Anil Kumar to give a sense of police behaviour. "Once the uniform enters their body, it is as if they have been subjected to electric shock. This was not said by an opposition leader or any of the victims of police brutality but by the DYFI's Ernakulam district secretary. What greater honour can you ask for," Roji said.

The UDF speakers also highlighted the silence of the Chief Minister. "The CCTV visuals (of Sujith's torture) came out on September 3. You are the Chief Minister. Why haven't you responded? When your police indulged in the worst forms of human rights violations, why did you remain silent? No other CM in history has ever been as silent as you are in the wake of such atrocities under his watch," Opposition Leader V D Satheesan said.

The counter-strategy of the ruling side was to sidestep the main issue and differentiate the police policies of the LDF and the UDF, to paint the UDF's as primitive and self-serving and its as progressive and pro-people. Incidents like Kunnumkulam or Peechi, it was argued, were a kind of rot too insignificant to infect the whole. 

LDF MLA KT Jaleel used discredited Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkoottathil as example to drive home the point. "Are all Congressmen like Rahul Mamkoottathil who is now accused of forcing a woman to kill a child in its womb?," he said.

The LDF side reeled out a list of police atrocities that took place before and after Independence. Right from the Wagon Tragedy to the Kayyur and Karuvellur atrocities under the British to the Kakkayam, Thankamani and Muthanga incidents under the Congress rule were cited. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the Congress governments right from Jawaharlal Nehru adhered to the brutal policing put in place by the British. He said it was in 1957, when the first Communist government came to power, that policing in Kerala was given a human touch. "Whenever the Congress came to power, they reverted to the brutality of the British system," Pinarayi said. 

He said the difference between the LDF and the UDF was that the LDF governments never protected errant policemen. "You had always used the police for your devious ends and you had always protected their cruel deeds. It was under you that policemen started to escort goondas who wanted to destroy the communists," the CM said. "But we transformed the police into a people-friendly unit," he said.

Nonetheless, the CM conceded that the evil that existed in society had indeed seeped into a minority in the police. "Just because they adorn the uniform does not mean that such disreputable tendencies had leaked out of  all of them. There could be some who had not assimilated the changes we had brought about, some who are still caught in the hangover of the past. If such people do anything wrong, the government will not protect them in any way," the CM said.

At this stage, the Opposition Leader got up. "You keep repeating that you will not protect the offenders. Our specific question is this. Will you dismiss from service these policemen who had indulged in shocking custodial torture in Kunnumkulam," he said.

The CM did not respond directly to the question. Instead, he said that his was the only government that had dismissed policemen for misconduct and other offences. Since 2016, he said 144 policemen were dismissed from service. This was more like saying you had breakfast when asked whether you had dinner.

Later, the CM revealed that Sujith's complaint had come before the department on April 12, 2023, itself. And on the basis of a report by the assistant police commissioner of Thrissur District Crime Records Bureau, the five policemen were transferred. 

Their suspension came two-and-a-half years late, on September 6 this year, three days after the CCTV visuals were out. This lends credence to the UDF argument that the government was protecting the offenders all along and had acted only after the visuals broke out. 

The CM also said that the inter-departmental enquiry that was already instituted against the accused policemen would be reviewed, hinting at a harsher punishment.