Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran squarely blamed four CPI(M) leaders for the rising gangsterism among youth in Kannur.
Mr. Sudhakaran alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, E. P. Jayarajan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and P. Jayarajan had ‘set an example for impressionable youth by amassing power and wealth under cover of the CPI(M).’
Scores of youth in Kannur viewed them as role models. “The CPI(M) youth feel no wrong in accumulating wealth through illegal means. They are merely aping their political icons. For them, profiteering and politics go hand in hand as it did for their leaders,” Mr. Sudhakaran said.
Mr. Sudhakaran called the four leaders from Kannur ‘communist hypocrites.’
They are anything but working-class leaders. None of them is a V. S. Achuthanandan or E. K. Nayanar. They are not proletarian in deed or word, he said.
The KPCC president said gold smugglers, hawala racketeers, illegal granite and river sand miners and loan sharks paid the CPI(M) protection money to operate in Kannur.
“Party leaders pocketed a third of the profits from gold smuggling,” he alleged.
Mr. Sudhakaran said Mr. Vijayan had no moral right to pontificate about Kannur youth slipping into crime, primarily gold smuggling, for easy money.
The Customs, Preventive, had ‘elaborated’ Mr. Vijayan’s ‘role’ in the UAE diplomatic channel gold smuggling case.
In a show-cause notice to other suspects, the Customs had pointed out that Mr. Vijayan had entertained the accused, including the UAE Consul General, at his official residence repeatedly, Mr. Sudhakaran said.
He said the Customs had underscored that Mr. Vijayan had done so without the knowledge of the State Protocol Officer and in violation of the etiquette mandated by the Union Ministry of External Affairs.
Mr. Sudhakaran said CPI(M) was fearful that its hired muscle would reveal incriminating secrets against party leaders if the organisation sought to bridle the gangs.
“The accused in RMP leader T. P. Chandrasekharan’s murder ruled the roost in Kannur jail. They had access to mobile phones, hotel food, friends and relatives. The convicts plotted murder, ordered hits and controlled gold smugglers and hawala agents from inside the prison. So the jail provided a perfect alibi for the gangsters,” he said.
Congress opposed the LDF’s move to introduce another harsh law with little scope for bail under the pretext of curbing organised crime.
Mr. Sudhakaran asked the government to postpone public examinations till the second wave abated.
