A 93-year-old human rights activist was arrested by the Kozhikode medical college police, for participating in a protest against the police seven years ago. A Vasu, popularly known as, GROW Vasu, was arrested for taking part in a protest in 2016, against the alleged extra-judicial killings of two Maoists–Koppam Devarajan and Ajitha– in Nilambur. The protest was held outside the Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode.
In November 2016, Thunderbolt, the special wing of the Kerala police, carried out an alleged ‘encounter' (act of killing in self-defence) at the Padukka forest range in Nilambur. Though the then DGP Loknath Behera claimed that the police fired at Koppam Devarajan and Ajitha after they refused to surrender, the claims are disputed by activists.
GROW Vasu who was a part of the Naxalite movements in the 1960s, had demanded a judicial probe into the incident and had alleged that the incident was orchestrated as an encounter by the police. According to police, Vasu had a long pending warrant against him. They also said that Vasu refused to plead for bail when he was produced before the Magistrate, following which he was remanded for 14 days in judicial custody.
GROW Vasu, who makes a living by selling umbrellas in Kozhikode, had been actively participating in many protests over the years. Recently, however, he remained away from politics.
Previously, Vasu had undergone seven years imprisonment in Kannur Central Prison after he was arrested in the Thirunelli incident in 1970, in which Naxal leader Varghese was killed.
In the 1980s Vasu protested for the Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers (GROW), in their demand to close down the Gwalior Rayons factory at Mavoor, claiming that the factory was polluting the Chaliyar river. The protest earned him the moniker of GROW Vasu.