“The aim is to maximise the pain,” said KA Antony, a Kannur-based political observer who has been tracking political violence in the district since 1970.
In the 1960s, bombs were used by impoverished beedi workers to resist operations against them by Mangalore-based companies. Their tactics were copied by political parties.
By the beginning of the 1980s, the practice of using bombs had taken deeper socio-political roots in Kannur. Today, political parties openly defend it.
On July 7 last year, migrant ragpickers Fazal Haq and his son Shaheedul found a steel lunch box that exploded when they tried to open it, killing them.