The recent decision of the Kerala High Court to hand over the investigation into the 2003 killings of nine Hindus allegedly by a marauding mob of Wahhabis on the Marad beach in Kozhikode district to the Central Bureau of Investigation has opened up old wounds in Kerala polity. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar and K. Satish Narain issued the order, while considering a PIL filed by Kolakkadan Moosa Haji in 2012, seeking a direction for a CBI probe into the “conspiracy” behind the riots. The CBI was directed to probe the larger conspiracy behind the riots, in which nine persons were killed on 2 May 2003. The state government also favoured a CBI probe into the incident. The high court also directed the state government to provide “all infrastructure to CBI to carry out smooth conduct of the probe”. Earlier, after a judicial probe into the incident, the Kerala police had registered a criminal case on the “larger conspiracy”.
It is an irony that it took 13 long years and a couple of inquiry commissions, which too demanded a probe by a Central investigation agency, for the court to step in and hand over the case to CBI. Marad, basically housing fisher folk, both Hindus and Muslims, has a history of communal tension due to lack of trust and misguided propaganda on the part of both communities. In January 2002, the first riot occurred in the area, resulting in the death of five persons belonging to both communities. The May 2003 killings of nine people were basically revenge for the earlier massacre. Eight of those were killed on that fateful Friday of 2 May 2003, while they were relaxing on the beach after a day’s hard labour at sea. It was reported that a mob of over 50 armed men attacked them without any provocation. As a few policemen watched helplessly from the nearby police picket, the crowd butchered the eight Hindus. According to the police, a person who belonged to the attacking party too was killed by mistake. Though there was mobilisation by the majority community to retaliate in the aftermath of the incident, this was thwarted by the timely intervention of the police. An uneasy calm prevailed in the area for many months, as some Muslim families deserted the village fearing retaliation. It took a while for social activists such as Gandhian Gopinathan Nair to bring about a semblance of peace in the area. But the mistrust and the divide created by the two incidents continued; while political parties with vested interests kept the embers of hatred hot.
Marad, basically housing fisher folk, both Hindus and Muslims, has a history of communal tension due to lack of trust and misguided propaganda on the part of both communities. In January 2002, the first riot occurred in the area, resulting in the death of five persons belonging to both communities. The May 2003 killings of nine people were basically revenge for the earlier massacre.
The massacre was initially investigated by the Kozhikode crime branch and later by a judicial commission led by Thomas P. Joseph. The Crime Branch as well as the judicial commission were of the opinion that since the state police had failed miserably in performing its duties, it was better to hand over the investigation into the incident to a Central agency, preferably CBI. The commission had affirmed that such a probe was needed since there was “a clear communal conspiracy, with Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist organisations involved” in the killings. The CPM and the Indian Union Muslim League, who have a stranglehold in the area, opposed a CBI inquiry. The Congress Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, who was in power at that time, too, was against the move. BJP’s current state president, Kummanom Rajasekharan’s was the only voice which was vehemently clamouring for a CBI probe into the incident. Curiously, the current Chief Minister of the state, Pinarayi Vijayan, who was then the state CPM party secretary, had opposed the very idea of a CBI probe. Visiting the area immediately after the riots, he charged the National Democratic Front with fanning Muslim fundamentalism in the state and its alliance with the IUML, aided and abetted by Antony’s soft stand towards such forces, resulting in the bloodbath. This was very much on expected lines. For the Joseph commission had noted that the “the CPI(M) local leaders were trying to make the people believe that they were the protectors of the Muslims in the area…The CPI(M) was not showing enthusiasm in conciliation and instead waiting for an opportunity to precipitate issues in the communally sensitive beach area.” Now both the CPM and the IUML have done a U-turn by welcoming the CBI probe. Kummanom Rajasekharan, on his part, has termed the ruling as “a tribute to those innocents who were massacred on the beach”. He added that it had been a long standing demand of the BJP that a Central agency should be asked to probe the conspiracy theory, money sources and involvement of foreign elements in the incident. He charged that both fronts were opposing such a move since the sinister involvement of their respective leadership would stand exposed by such a probe.
Whatever the immediate reasons, there was a lingering doubt from the beginning that the killings were part of a larger conspiracy and those involved in the heinous crime had received foreign funds. Though the Crime Branch, which initially investigated the case, identified nearly 150 people involved, it failed to discover who plotted the massacre from behind the scenes. The Thomas P. Joseph commission too could not throw much light on this particular aspect of the case. The commission’s main recommendation was a further inquiry involving the Intelligence Bureau, CBI and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence into the “larger conspiracy” involving fundamentalist and other forces and into the source of explosives and funds the police “failed or refused” to investigate, an act that the commission described as “quite suspicious and disturbing”. Despite such an open observation, successive governments did not act in a positive manner and the courts too till now had refused to order a CBI inquiry. Hence the current ruling is a welcome relief to the affected families who have been crying for justice all these years. It is also a slap in the face of successive political establishments, who have deliberately turned a blind eye to such a demand. Kerala society is definitely looking for some closure from the CBI to allay the apprehensions of the people in coastal Marad.
