Author: Rajeev PI
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 1, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/7618.html
Introduction: Court takes suo motu notice
after inmate writes to the Chief Justice, complaining of torture by partymen.
The convict's SOS to the HC detailed how comrades torture non-political prisoners
and those from other political parties - while jail officials look the other
way.
The Kerala High Court has asked the Left government
in the state to inform what it proposed to do about the Kannur Central Jail,
where convicted comrades attack and torture other prisoners.
The court had suo motu taken as PIL a letter
that a jail inmate scribbled on an inland and managed to post to the Chief
Justice. Before it did, the Court had asked the Kannur District Judge to probe
the complaint. The judge's report only underlined that the rot was actually
worse.
Kannur is a CPI(M) stronghold known more for
its political bloodbaths. Here, bomb throwing, hatchet-wielding comrades and
RSS men have been killing and mutilating each other for many decades - officially,
some 200-odd men had died at the height of the violence. Things have cooled
off lately, though a stray killing or two still happens.
The convict's SOS to the HC detailed how hundreds
of jailed CPI(M) men, led by their comrades on the death row, or serving life
sentences for political murders, have established a near-dictatorship in the
jail. It said packs of comrades regularly torture non-political prisoners
and those from other political parties - while jail officials look the other
way. ''Unless you convince them that you are a CPI(M) man, you are bound to
be cruelly thrashed,'' said the letter which also names some leaders who head
the "torture teams".
It says the Jail Superintendent and several
other staff too are CPI(M) followers. ''When the tortured convicts complain
to these officials, they ask: What can we possibly do? The CPI(M) men are
implementing their parallel rules in this jail.'' The letter details the torture
reserved for those daring to complain: ''They come in a group of 10 to 15,
mostly led by CPI(M) men sentenced to death or serving life sentences. They
surround him (the complainant) and brutally beat him up.'' In a particular
block in the jail the CPI(M) men even have a non-political murderer serving
a life sentence, and another jailed for drug trafficking, to lead its hit
teams, says the letter.
Incidentally, the jail, with its 950 convicts
and undertrials, became the preserve of the CPI(M) after all the RSS convicts
in it were shifted to other jails a few months ago. This was after the state
police intelligence warned the government that the jail could erupt into a
bloody war between the two sides anytime.
The CPI(M) has six men on death row for killing
a schoolteacher belonging to the RSS inside the classroom as he was teaching.
Add to this the several serving life sentences for political murders and the
many more jailed for hacking, stabbing or throwing bombs at opponents.
The District Judge's probe report is learnt
to have underscored that this jail has now turned into a CPI(M) preserve,
while pointing out that the established practice even in smaller jails in
the area was to segregate criminals and send them to different prisons based
on their political affiliation. The report also mentions fights for drugs
within the jail and is understood to have asked the government to construct
walls and barricades to physically segregate prisoners within the jail. Another
recommendation is learnt to be to stop trying to run this jail anymore with
provisionally appointed staff.
In the past too the jail had been in the headlines
for all the wrong reasons. Its staff had been collared for helping to push
drugs for the inmates, a CPI(M) man was murdered within the jail and there
had been a huge uproar after the last Left government of E K Nayanar tried
to pardon and set free too many life convicts. But political criminals are
denied few creature comforts here, right up to alcohol regularly smuggled
in in mineral water bottles.
rajeev.pi@expressindia.com
