Not surprisingly, VS fired the first salvo against the police high-handedness. If the police action is not controlled forthwith, it will create an impression that the Government is fast acquiring a fascist character, VS said in a strongly-worded statement.

The proximate cause for criticism is the slapping of sedition charges against writer Kamal Chavara for allegedly insulting the National Anthem. Policemen should realize that Kerala police is not a tool of suppression, VS said, adding that the practice of lock-up torture is alien to an LDF Government’s ethos. VS also asked the Chief Minister to dismiss the police officer who brutally attacked a CPI(M) branch secretary at Fort Koxchi last week.

What has added fuel to the resentment of VS and others is the fact that the police action is based on a complaint from Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha(BJYM) worker to the DGP.

The police activism prompted the Muslim Youth League (MYL), the youth wing of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) to wonder whether the Home department is controlled by the BJYM. This is in clear violation of the Supreme Court guidelines on the invocation of Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), MYL state general secretary P K Feroze said. Even if the charge of insult to the national anthem is correct, action should have been taken only under the Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act, 1971.

The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that even the soft-spoken CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has been constrained to say that sedition charges should not have been slapped against Kamal Chavara.

That the Government has started feeling the heat of public pressure is clear from the belated statement of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who controls the home department. It may be mentioned that Vijayan had, on an earlier occasion, defended the police action in killing two Maoists in an ‘encounter’. Nothing should be done to weaken the morale of police, the CM had said then, drawing flak from VS and Kanam. Kanam had gone to the extent of dubbing the Nilambur encounter in which the Maoists had been gunned down as a fake one. VS had also strongly denounced the killing of Maoists.

Be that as it may, the latest act of police high-handedness has brought a bad name to the LDF government. What is even more worrying is that such excesses on the part of the police would seriously dent the credibility of the CPI(M) as a fighter against the fascists tendencies of the BJP-RSS.

The incident has left a trail of bitterness forcing progressive sections of society to condemn the tendency of the state police to run amok the way the police do in BJP-ruled states.

To say that there is an urgent need to control the state police is only to state the obvious. The allies have sounded a note of warning. It is now up to the Chief Minister to firmly act on it. Delay to do so or further dilly-dallying on the serious issue will chip away at the popular base of the CPI(M) in particular and the LDF in general. It is a luxury an LDF Government, only six months into its rule, simply cannot afford. (IPA Service)