The late Saturday evening arrest and remand in judicial custody invited immediate criticism on social media.
Published Jul 29, 2023 | 11:47 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 30, 2023 | 6:24 AM
A Vasu at his residence. (Praveen K)
In a move that could spark public protests and criticism of the ruling LDF, the Kerala police arrested nonagenarian human rights activist GROW Vasu late on Saturday, 29 July, and sent him to judicial custody.
A former Naxalite and a campaigner against extra-judicial killings and police excesses, Vasu, 93, was arrested in connection with a case registered seven years ago for leading a protest against the alleged fake encounter killing of alleged Maoists Koppam Devarajan and Ajitha Kaveri inside the Nuilambur forests in Malappuram.
When contacted by South First, Kozhikode Medical College Police Station’s Station House Officer ML Benny Lal said there was no vendetta involved in the arrest.
It was the execution of a warrant pending for a long against Vasu in connection with a case registered over a protest in front of the mortuary of the Kozhikode medical college in November 2016, he said.
Ayinoor Vasu — aka GROW Vasu — had been charged with unlawful assembly and obstructing police in the discharge of their duty.
When he was produced in a local court on Saturday, the magistrate advised Vasu to apply for bail and go home. But the nonagenarian insisted on remand custody in jail as that would expose the bogus police claims about his crime.
Vasu said he would argue the case on his own and use the occasion to expose the Left government, which, according to him, is now showing the characteristics of a dictatorial regime.
As an active trade unionist, Vasu led a workers’ movement against the Birla-owned Gwalior Rayons at Mavoor, Kozhikode, which led to the closure of the unit.
Heading the workers’ movement under the Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers (GROW) earned the former active Naxalite the sobriquet GROW Vasu.
On 24 November, 2016, the anti-Maoist Thunderbolt wing of Kerala Police shot dead Koppam Devarajan, said to be a Central Committee member of the banned CPI (Maoist), and Ajitha alias Kaveri, a claimed cadre of the Maoist outfit, in Padukka forest in the Karulai range of the Nilambur South division.
When their bodies were shifted to Kozhikode Medical College for postmortem, a group of activists, including Vasu, held protests and accused the police of executing a fake encounter. Vasu has been demanding a judicial inquiry into the killings all these years.
“We don’t know what happened. The forest area (15 km from Padukka forest station) had been cordoned off, and even reporters were not allowed to go there,” he told media persons then.
Since Vijayan came to power in 2016, Kerala has witnessed police atrocities at regular intervals, and eight suspected Maoists were gunned down in the state in alleged fake encounters.
The most recent of the Maoist killings took place in November 2020, when S. Velmurugan from Periyakulam in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu, was shot dead by the police at an isolated forest region of Padinjarathara in Wayanad.
Velmurugan’s encounter occurred 19 months after 25-year-old suspected Maoist CP Jaleel was shot dead similarly at a private tourist resort in Wayanad. Police said that on March 6, 2019, Jaleel and another Maoist came to Upavan resort at Lakkidi to demand money from its owners.
Jaleel died on the spot after being shot in the head and shoulder while his companion allegedly escaped into the nearby forests.
On October 28, 2019, four suspected Maoists — Manivasakam, Karthi, Aravind, and Rema — were killed by Thunderbolt inside the forests at Manjeekandi in Kerala’s major tribal region, Attappady.
All the deceased were natives of Tamil Nadu, and there were reports that they were planning to surrender due to a resource crunch and health complications.
Meanwhile, Kerala’s social media circles began backing Vasu’s cause as soon as he was arrested on Saturday.
Many said the jailing of the aged human rights defender would turn out to be the biggest blunder of the Pinarayi Vijayan Government, known for instances of police excesses as also the extrajudicial targeting of political opponents and journalists.
Even the CPI, the second-largest constituent of the LDF, has called out some incidents as fake encounters, putting Vijayan on the back foot.
In the days following the Manjeekandi incident, the Home Department slapped the draconian UAPA on two students in Kozhikode, who incidentally were card-carrying members of the CPI(M), for distributing pamphlets demanding justice for the killed Maoists.
Three years later, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court gave them bail in the face of a massive outcry for justice.
When firebrand Naxalite leader A Varghese, who was operating from the Thrissilery-Thirunelli forests in North Wayanad, was shot dead in an “encounter”, the CPI(M) party and its Malayalam mouthpiece Deshabhimani, too, rejected the state government’s claims and asserted that it was a cold-blooded murder of a political activist.
All these killings are happening despite the CPI(M), which leads the LDF coalition, having nationally taken a stand against extrajudicial killings involving trigger-happy counter-insurgency forces.
“Eight suspected Maoists have been killed in an extrajudicial way under this government. It is quite surprising that this is happening under a Communist chief minister,” Vasu said when the media met him in the police station compound on Saturday.
Once, when he faced public condemnation for extrajudicial killings, Vijayan defended the police by claiming that the Opposition and the media were glorifying Maoists.
“The Maoists are not holy souls or lambs,” he had said then.
