The Central Bureau of Investigation has found that the murder of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) worker C.T. Manoj in Payyoli in Kozhikode district was an act of political vendetta. According to the agency, the plot to kill Manoj was hatched at the CPM local committee office on 9 February 2012. This was ratified by the area committee of the party a day later. Manoj was attacked at his home by mask wearing goons two days later on 12 February 2012. He later died at the local medical college. The CPM leadership had supplied a list of 15 dummy culprits to the local police as involved in the murder. But as the trial was about to begin, four of those named in the list made a confessional statement that they were not involved in the murder, and the party, in connivance with the police, had framed them. Though known to all that this is the practice followed by the party in all political murders, the statement by the four changed the course of the case. On a petition moved by the wife and mother of Manoj to investigate the plot behind the murder, a local court ordered the crime branch to probe the case. However, on a writ petition moved by one of Manoj’s friends, the high court ruled to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
It is now the Thiruvananthapuram unit of the CBI, which has found the involvement of the top CPM leadership of the area in the murder. It has drawn up charge sheets against nine and two others who have since escaped to foreign lands. Among the nine accused are CPM’s Kozhikode district committee member, Payyoli local secretary, area committee member, local councillor, local committee member and four other party workers. The CBI, in its report, has stated that it has got damaging evidence to prove direct involvement of all charge sheeted. The then area committee secretary, T. Chandu was very much in the know of the killing. Strangely, many of the killers did not even know Manoj personally. They were told to kill one of the RSS workers in Payyoli to take revenge for an attack on one of the CITU workers in the area. This was decided at the CPM local committee office on 9 February 2012, which was given a go ahead by the area committee. How the ticket to death fell on Manoj is not known yet. But now the case, which could have been written off as yet another murder in the area, has brought to the open the practice of fielding dummies by rival political parties for years.
Among the nine accused are CPM’s Kozhikode district committee member, Payyoli local secretary, area committee member, local councillor, local committee member and four other party workers. The CBI has stated that it has got damaging evidence to prove direct involvement of all charge sheeted.
Though the CPM cadre are past masters in this “dummy” art, the BJP/RSS is also not far behind. The police are silent spectators to the whole drama. This has no relevance as to which party is in power at the time of the murder, though Congress’ rule has seen “fewer” killings. Those who are brought in front of the investigative officers, promptly admit to their crime and in the absence of any concrete evidence, the actual culprits, who are mostly higher-ups in the leadership, go scot free. So are the cases which over the years fade into memory. The cruel murder of Marxist rebel T.P. Chandrashekharan is one such living example. All efforts by his widow to get a CBI inquiry into the case have been successfully thwarted by the party. The families of those who are charged with murder are taken care of by the party, so are all the legal expenses. There is even a corpus fund created solely for this purpose. And those who refuse to fall in line of the party will have to face grave consequences, even resulting in social boycott of their families. With the new CBI findings there may be an end to this practice. It will also help bring down cases of political murders since the number of volunteers will also come down.
The immediate fallout of this case will be the CBI investigation into another murder of yet another RSS worker, Kathirur Manoj in Kannur on 1 September 2014. The CBI now wants the case to be moved out of Kerala.
More prominent leaders of the CPM are allegedly involved in the case and the investigative agency feels that it will not be able to question them properly if the case is conducted in the state. Two high profile leaders in the case are CPM’s Kannur district secretary P. Jayarajan, and former Payyannur area secretary T.I. Madhusudhanan. Jayarajan is likely to be re-elected secretary in the ongoing party organisational elections in the run-up to the party congress later this year in Hyderabad. In the event it will be difficult for the CBI to arrest Jayarajan from Kannur for questioning.
Manoj was one of the main accused in an attempt to murder Jayarajan in 1999 and his killing is widely believed to be a revenge act. Both Jayarajan and Madhusudhanan are charged under UAPA, which the ruling party in Kerala is contesting.