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Campus politics leaves Kollam violent and tense

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The hostage drama at the S N College in Kollam has placed many, including the district collector, in the dock.

The college principal now says that the agreement to settle the three-month-old strike by the Students Federation of India was extracted from him by torturing him mentally.

Several senior officials, including the district superintendent of police, MP P Rajendran and Kundara MLA Mercykutty Amma, were present when the SFI students forced the principal, Professor V K Vijayan, to sign the agreement after holding him hostage for more than 12 hours without food or water.

The Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, which controls the college, has decided to proceed against the incident legally, on the basis of the principal's statement.

The SNDP leaders said they would file a contempt of court petition in the high court since the happenings in the college from 0010 hours to 2300 hours last Tuesday were strictly against the court order banning demonstration in the campus.

The detention of the principal by 140 SFI members and the presence of a large number of students and outsiders, some with arms, in the campus were a violation of the high court order, SNDP union president D Prabha said.

He alleged that the district collector and other senior officials, who were duty bound to implement the court order, had created a favourable situation for the SFI, the student's wing of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist, to dictate terms.

Though the district collector had informed the SNDP leaders that talks would be held only after the principal's release, he turned out to be a supporter of the law-breakers and forced the principal to sign the documents under captivity, Prabha alleged.

The SNDP has already rejected the agreement, which envisages the rehabilitation of three of four expelled students.

The original demand was the withdrawal of expulsion of four students, who are all members of the SFI.

The plight of the officials is similar to those involved in the Payyavur panchayat case. The state chief secretary, Kannur district collector, SP and a senior panchayat official were found guilty of contempt of court in the case, wherein the opposition members of the panchayat were detained during a meeting convened to discuss a no-confidence motion against the Marxist panchayat administration. They were let off after an apology.

The Congress, which spearheaded that agitation for over a month, sees in the S N College a continuation of the attempt by the CPI-M to "batter democracy".

Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly A K Antony said the events were the result of an "unprecedented breakdown in law and order".

He asked the CPI-M to give up the home ministry in the light of the failure by the district and political officials to enforce the court order and release the principal from illegal detention.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which intervened in the crisis, demanded stern action against the district collector and the SP.

BJP president C K Padamanabhan said the incident was similar to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft by terrorists. While the Islamic terrorists provided food and other basic facilities to the passengers, the SFI activists denied even that to the principal, who is a diabetic, he said.

The state government, for its part, seems to view the situation lightly. Chief Minister E K Nayanar maintains that the principal had signed the agreement voluntarily under peaceful circumstances.

Though CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan admitted that the students had detained the principal, he does not see anything wrong in it. Gherao, he argues, is part of the democratic process.

The incident will have a serious fall-out in Kerala's campus politics. The public opinion in the state is weighed against the SFI after they beat up the principal of the Nirmalagiri College in Kannur to get a similar demand conceded. A judicial inquiry into that incident is already on.

The SFI has been party to similar troubles in several colleges in the last three years. Rival students organisations, even the one belonging to the CPI-M partner, the Communist Party of India, are not happy with the state of affairs.

They complain that it is virtually impossible for rival unions to carry out organisational activities in colleges where the SFI has the upper hand. For instance, leaders of non-SFI organisations have not been able to take part in the election in the Thiruvananthapuram University College for the past several years.

Meanwhile, over a 100 Youth Congress activists and several police personnel were injured, some of them seriously, when violence marred a march to the SP's to press the demand to suspend him and the district collector.

Trouble arose when the police stopped the protesters in front of the district Congress committee office. As the Youth Congress activists tried to break the cordon, police used force to disperse them. In the process, the DCC office was also allegedly ransacked by the police.

The injured, including K C Venugopal, MLA, and Dy SP Jinarajan, have been admitted to hospitals. Jinarajan is reportedly in the intensive care unit.

Police said eight officers and 25 other personnel were injured.

Reinforcements have been rushed to the spot. The situation continues to be tense.

The march was inaugurated by AICC secretary Ramesh Chennithala, MP.

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