On Thursday, Kannur District Congress Committee President Satheesan Pacheni sat on a day-long fast, demanding action against the 'real' culprits who attacked former CPI(M) leader COT Naseer last month. The protest was held at Thalaserry in Kannur, which is Naseer's political base.
On May 18, Naseer, a former CPI(M) party member, who was contesting the Lok Sabha Elections as an independent candidate, was attacked by unidentified assailants. Naseer had claimed that AN Shamseer, the CPI(M) MLA of Thalassery, had conspired to commit the crime. Naseer’s statement has triggered a political controversy in the state.
The Congress, which won recently the Lok Sabha Elections with a landslide victory, has decided to back Naseer and has intensified its attack on the CPI(M) on the issue.
“We are not demanding that Shamseer be made an accused. What we want is that the investigation should be truthful and the real culprits behind the attack should be arrested. Any unnecessary interference of the police, in this case, should be avoided,” Sajeev Joseph, KPCC General Secretary, told TNM.
He also alleged that the police have not recorded the statements of the victim properly.
“Though Naseer’s statement was recorded once when the police registered a case, they excluded certain portions of his statement where he talked about the culprits. The Chief Minister has now said that Naseer has not named Shamseer in the statement. However, Naseer kept saying that his statement has not been recorded properly,” he added.
Naseer is a former leader of the CPI(M) in Thalassery, a party stronghold. He left the party in 2015. In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, Naseer contested as an independent candidate of Vadakara constituency-located in the neighbourhood of Thalassery,
Congress leader K Muraleedharan, who won against Naseer from the Vadakara constituency in the LS polls, kicked off Congress’s protest fast on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the opposition had moved an adjournment motion in the Assembly on the issue, blaming the government for its failure to arrest those behind the attack.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in his reply, had said that the police will act in a fair and impartial manner against those involved in crimes and added that the police had to depend on scientific evidence to nab the accused in the case. Assuring that there was no lapse on the part of the police, he also stated that CPI(M) Kannur district secretary MV Jayarajan had visited Naseer at the hospital, apart from the party's Vadakara candidate P Jayarajan.
However, opposition on Tuesday had staged a walkout in the Legislative Assembly to protest against the government's handling of the case after they found Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's reply unsatisfactory.