LDF government red-cards police move to handcuff KSU students

In an unexpected deviation from its usual line of argument, the LDF government on Friday accepted in the Assembly that in one case of alleged police excess, the men in uniform had acted in a disreputable manner. 

The admission, however, was not made by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan but by V N Vasavan, the Minister for Ports, Cooperation and Devaswom, who stood in for the CM in the Assembly on Friday.

The action of the police that the government condemned was the manner in which three KSU students (Ganesh Aatoor, Mohammad Aslam and Al Ameen) were produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate by the Wadakkancherry police early in September. Their faces were covered in black cloth, and their hands were handcuffed from behind.

"Even terrorists are not taken to court like this. There is a Supreme Court verdict against this," Opposition Leader V D Satheesan said while raising a Submission on the issue in the Assembly on Friday. "Not only did the court strongly condemn this police action, but also asked why the students were produced in this manner," Satheesan said.

Since the police failed to give a convincing reply, the Opposition Leader said a show-cause notice was issued to the station house officer (SHO). "A report has been submitted to the court through the district (Thrissur) police chief," Satheesan said. He also alleged that cases were registered only against KSU workers when it was an SFI-KSU clash.

Further, Satheesan said that video clips of the SHO threatening the parents of these students had also come out. "He had gone to the houses six times to threaten the parents," he said and added: "What makes this even more grave is the fact that this is the same SHO that had tortured Youth Congress leader Sujith in Kunnamkulam police station." 

The Opposition Leader urged the government to take urgent disciplinary action against the guilty officers. 

In his reply, minister V N Vasavan said that students of Killimangalam and Mala government colleges formed into two groups and had engaged in a fight during the Calicut University's D Zone arts festival. Later, based on a complaint that seven people, including Ganesh, had assaulted two students and had robbed them of money and mobiles, the minister said a case was registered in the Wadakkancherry Police Station. 

The minister said that three of the accused, including Ganesh, who had been absconding, were nabbed from Koyilandy on September 11. He quoted the police report to say that it was to conceal the identities of the students before the identification parade that their heads were covered in black cloths. 

However, the minister did not defend the handcuffing. "If the students were handcuffed, the government disapproves of such an action," he said. He also said that the SHO had been transferred pending an inquiry.

Custodial torture continued to simmer in the Assembly even a week after the 14th session began. On Friday, the UDF boycotted the day's proceedings, saying that the government had refused to consider their demand to dismiss the officers involved in the Kunnamkulam custodial torture in which Youth Congress leader S V Sujith was the victim. 

Two UDF MLAs - Congress's Chalakkudy MLA T J Saneesh Kumar Joseph and the Muslim League's Manjeshwar MLA A K M Ashraf - have been on an indefinite strike inside the Assembly demanding the ouster of the offending police officers.  

Five officers, an SI and four civil police officers, were transferred in April 2023 itself. Their increment was also blocked for two years. Early this month, after the CCTV visuals were out, these officers were suspended. The UDF wants their dismissal.