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BJP hartal sparks off violence in blood-soaked Kannur

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

With the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Bharatiya Janata Party to protest against the cold-blooded murder of Yuva Morcha vice president K T Jayakrishnan leading to sporadic incidents of violence and further revenge killings today, the state BJP is making out a case for central intervention in the state.

The state unit of the party has invited all-India BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu to make on the spot assessment of the situation. Naidu, who is scheduled to visit Thiruvananthapuram in the second week of December, is expected to visit the troubled areas in the northern district of Kannur on December 10, according to BJP sources.

State BJP president C K Padmanabhan has meanwhile asked Chief Minister E K Nayanar to relinquish the home portfolio in the light of the continuing violence. He said the party was not expecting peace to return to Kannur with the chief minister at the helm of the home department. The BJP's decision not to sign the peace accord brokered by former Supreme Court judge VR Krishna Iyer has been proved right, he said.

Padmanabhan saidpeace could be restored in Kannur only with the CPI-M eschewing the path of violence.

The turn of events leading to the murder of two each BJP and CPI-M leaders since Wednesday morning has also sent alarm signals in the left and government circles.

Nayanar, who had maintained till yesterday that he would not intervene in Kannur, announced his decision to visit the violence affected areas of Kannur on December 3. The chief minister had not visited Kannur after the outbreak of violence. Nayanar has also asked inspector general Sibi Mathews to camp in Kannur. Additional forces from neighbouring districts have been deployed in all sensitive areas in the district.

The chief minister also issued a strongly-worded appeal to political workers that the government would take strong action against trouble makers without regard to political affiliations. He appealed to voluntary organisations and cultural leaders in the state to contribute their mite for bringing sanity back to Kannur.

The chief minister has also directed the Kannur district collector to convene a peace committee meeting on Friday. Leaders of all political parties have been invited for the committee meeting to be held in the morning.

The authorities were visibly shaken by the murder of CPI-M worker Kanakan at Elankot near Panur in Kannur this morning in the wake of three murders on Wednesday. He was hacked to death by RSS activists.

The 12-hour hartal also saw the BJP and RSS demonstrators indulging in wanton destruction of public properties, attack the police and defying prohibitory orders. Hundreds of buses and private vehicles were either stoned or set afire in Kannur and other parts of the state as part of the hartal. Bombs were hurled at demonstrators in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram districts. Police opened fire in the air at different places in Kannur.

The hartal almost turned into a bandh in several places with shops and commercial establishments remaining closed and vehicles keeping off the road. Even the government-run Kerala State Road Transport Corporation did not ply its buses following widespread incidents.

The killings evoked sharp reactions from various quarters in Kerala. Justice Krishna Iyer, the architect of the peace initiative broke down before media-persons. "One can only weep for this state", he said while condemning the killings.

A Yuva Morcha leader, a teacher of the Mokeri East Upper primary school, was hacked to death before his students at 10.30 am on Wednesday. His head was nearly chopped off by three assailants and he died on the spot. In retaliatory acts subsequently, another BJP worker and a CPI-M worker was killed elsewhere in the district.

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