The Opposition walked out of the Assembly on Wednesday after Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan disallowed their motion to adjourn the House to debate the “questionable” arrest and incarceration of two students, both CPI(M) activists at Pantheerankavu in Kozhikode on UAPA charges in November last.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition and IUML legislator M.K. Muneer, who sought the leave of the House for the adjournment debate, disputed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s claim that the National Investigation Agency had taken over the case against the youngsters, Alan Shuhaib, 19, and Taha Fasal, 21, on their own.
He said the State police steered by Mr. Vijayan had opened the door for the NIA to step in by branding the youth as Maoists and slapping the black law on them without an iota of evidence. The CM was cagey about the circumstances of their arrest. The police have no case they had participated in a terrorist action or plot, Dr. Muneer said.
The families of the youth were ardent communists. They felt betrayed by Mr. Vijayan. So did ordinary CPI(M) workers in Kozhikode. Dr. Muneer wondered whether Kerala had become a super police State under Mr. Vijayan where secret surveillance of students and thought policing was the order of the day.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said Mr. Vijayan shared Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s views on UAPA and urban Maoists. He had made light of the plight of the youngsters and stigmatised them as terrorists.
Mr. Vijayan had cast down his party members into the purgatory of imprisonment without scope for bail, he said.
Mr. Vijayan said the Congress was shedding crocodile tears for the victims of the very black law they had authored in 2008. The party empowered the Centre to overrule the State and transfer “scheduled offences” under the Act to the NIA.
The Opposition sought to portray the accused as “innocent fawns”. The police had arrested them when they met Usman, an accused in several UAPA cases. However, Usman gave the police the slip and remained at large.
He said terrorists of varying ideologists often found common ground against the system they sought to topple. Maoists have links with other radical outfits, he said.
