The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has reportedly woken up to a relatively new threat; persons with criminal links running trendy pro-party ‘fan pages’ on social media possibly to attract potential recruits for their illegal purposes.
Court filings by the Customs (Preventive) had revealed that at least two DYFI workers who ran viral pro-CPI(M) pages on Facebook were high on their wanted list in a gold smuggling case. They had used CPI(M) iconography to project their accounts as genuine.
An insider said the CPI(M) leadership felt that such bogus pages could potentially subvert the party’s legitimacy in the public eye.
The CPI(M) is on the cusp of launching a massive campaign, Kerala Stree Paksham, to muster the masses to support the cause of gender justice. It wanted the programme to become a social movement. The campaign is hugely social media-centric.
Hence, the CPI(M) was likely to regulate the social media behaviour of its members and urge them to follow, like and respond only on official social media accounts of the party and its mass organisations.
DYFI State secretary A.A. Rahim said the suspects had only a fringe association with the youth organisation. They had latched on to the DYFI perhaps to gain legitimacy and remain off the law enforcement’s radar.
The DYFI had done a background check in February and found the youth had inexplicably acquired wealth in a short time.
“On February 7, the DYFI marched through the Thillenkeri neighbourhood, urging local youth not to slip into crime. The DYFI has asked its cadres to follow the official FB page of the DYFI and its district committees, and not any phoney accounts,” he said.
Mr. Rahim said pop culture portrayals of lawbreakers and a misplaced sense of machoism had romanticised criminality in the minds of impressionable youth. Mafia groups could easily lure them with the promise of quick money.
Hence, the DYFI has launched a drive, including background check of members, awareness campaigns targetting youth and political re-education of its volunteers to stamp out any criminal tendencies among its cadre, he said.
