AYUSH ANAND & VAIBHAV CHADHA
Advocate Rajesh is a well-known criminal lawyer at the Vadakara Court, in Kozhikode. He deals with almost all cases of communist violence against RSS workers in his area. Rajesh also contested the 2016 assembly elections on a BJP ticket from Vadakara Assembly constituency and polled around 14000 votes which comprised 11% of the total vote share.
Rajesh is the advocate for the cases of Manoj, VV Mani and Jeevana of Eyyankode and in all these cases he is facing the same difficulty, that of botched up investigation by the Kerala Police. According to him, after every such incidence of violence, the police try to hush up the case. The workers of RSS and BJP, who are victims of communist violence mostly come from poor, less educated and labour class backgrounds. They do not know how to give statements to the police or how to preserve the evidences, nor the value of uniform statements before all the authorities because of their challenging. On the other side, CPM cadres are well read and know the law hence they use it to not only falsely implicate the victims themselves, but also in planning their attack.
Advocate Rajesh also points out how the administration works under the diktats of the CPI(M) leadership. On the instruction of the communist leaders, it writes police diaries and carries out investigation by keeping the CPI(M) apparatchiks informed. Even the charges are framed as per the CPM’s convenience, especially in all cases of political violence. Not only during their regime, but even when the UDF was in power the communists succeeded in freely adhering to this subversive modus operandi.
The police force in Kerala is full of communist sympathisers who help CPM members evade the judicial process in all cases where CPM workers are involved.
Advocate Rajesh gave us the example of C.T.Manoj’s murder case where the High Court, taking cognisance of these anomalies happening in the police investigation, ordered for it to be handed over to the CBI. Not only this, Rajesh also recalled an incidence where CPM leaders changed the important files and documents in the court room itself to evade the punishment by exerting their influence over the court room staff. Rajesh lamented that at times he feels left without option as the whole state machinery join hands to save the culprits of such crime.
He himself was a victim of CPM violence in his college days. His left eye sight is very weak because of an incidence in his college. They were staging a protest as ABVP members when they were suddenly attacked by some SFI workers. During the ensuing tussle someone penetrated a knife in Rajesh’s left eye. Miraculously the eye survived but weakened compelling him to read the documents.
Advocate Rajesh told us how the gate of the RSS office, which is close to his office, was broken by these communist goons and how the entire area, like the Nazis did, was marked as their territory with SFI road paint and banners. In several areas of Vadakara the communists do not allow anyone to put up party flags and posters of BJP. In the interiors of Vadakara the situation is similar to a Maoist liberated zone no opposition political activity is banned and the entire area is marked with red flags and with posters of Che Guvera. Similar to what they did in West Bengal, the communists violently target anyone who is found involved in any other political campaign. In those pockets, Advocate Rajesh told us, the Constitution of India stands suspended and the only rule book is the Red Book or the Communist Manifesto. Opposition of all kinds stands suspended and is decimated.
Rajesh told us that that he was working with a team of 10 to 15 BJP workers in the area, who have to deal with all such situations and because of his active involvement he is also under constant threat from CPM cadres and goons and could be attacked any time. “But my commitment cannot be silenced by these violators”, he reiterated.
(The authors are research scholars studying the trends of communist violence in India.)