The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Thursday blamed the State police for the “wanton and reccurrent” killing of Maoists in Kerala.
CPI State secretary Kanam Rajendran said the law enforcement spilt the blood of Maoists wilfully to claim Central funds for combating armed insurgency. He said the role of the police was to identify Maoists, gather evidence against them, and arrest the insurgents. The government should not allow the police to act as judge and executioner.
The CPI State Council adopted a resolution urging the government to rein in special police forces operating with unbridled freedom against Maoists in the forests of north Kerala.
Mr. Rajendran said the shooting of Maoist Velmurugan in Wayanad forests recently had all the markings of an extrajudicial killing. None of the Thunderbolt commandos involved in the “encounter” had sustained any injuries. Elected representatives who visited the locality learned from local people and other sources that Velmurgan had not fired his weapon.
Magisterial inquiry
Mr. Rajendran demanded that the government hold a magisterial inquiry into the incident. He also asked the administration make public the findings of magisterial inquiries into earlier Maoist killings.
Maoists posed no threat to Kerala. The CPI was against left-wing extremism and armed insurgency. However, it did not believe that eliminating Maoists in cold blood was a solution. The Left was in power in Kerala. The deliberate killing of Maoists would only serve to erode its political stature.
Kerala did not face left extremism on the scale perhaps witnessed in Chattisgarh or Jharkhand, the CPI said.
