Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 27, 2006
URL: http://www.haindavakeralam.org/PageModule.aspx?PageID=1939&SKIN=K
The contents of the judicial commission report
on the 2003 Marad massacre which was tabled in the Kerala Assembly on Wednesday
have come as a shock to sociologists, common people and right-thinking politicians
in the State.
The commission's unambiguous indications on
the involvement of some Muslim League leaders and the role of the radical
Islamist organisation, NDF, have given rise to fears of their presence in
the Kerala political set-up.
Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission has categorically
stated that NDF's local leadership had planned and executed the May 3, 2003
carnage in which nine fishermen were hacked to death.
Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan - after
tabling the report in the Assembly - said the Government had recommended a
CBI enquiry to the Marad massacre on the basis of the report.
Observers have been surprised by the report's
finding which has mentioned that the then UDF government under AK Antony had
mysteriously failed to recommend a CBI probe into the incident.
They also express shock at the commission's
revelation that then industries minister PK Kunhalikutty was not in favour
of such a probe.
The report has criticised the then Kozhikode
district administration for its inaction and was hard on then district collector
TO Sooraj, former city police commissioner Sanjeev Padjoshi, assistant commissioner
of police, south, Abdul Rahim and then Crime Branch IG Mahesh Kumar Singla.
The commission has also recommended probe
into the conduct of Singla who had headed the Crime Branch enquiry into the
incident. The commission states in its report that the Crime Branch had not
conducted a proper enquiry into the presence of huge cache of arms and ammunition
on the site of the incident as also the source of funds for conducting such
a massive operation.
"All these revelations are indicative
of the damaging levels our democratic and secular process has reached. There
is no reason to disbelieve a judicial panel and so we have to face it,"
said a cultural leader.
Observers are of the opinion that the commission
report has clearly indicted the Antony Government for not conducting a proper
and impartial enquiry into the massacre which had ramifications on the social
psyche of the State.
"This incident can be considered one
of the major communal massacres the State had ever seen. The Government sat
on it without conducting a detailed and thorough probe by a Central agency.
Such a probe could have given a clearer picture of the conspiracy. It seems
that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of the then UDF government
to conceal something," he said.
In the first Marad communal killings on January
2 and 3, 2002 there were five deaths. Among the dead, three were Muslims and
two Hindus. If what the commission says in its report is true, despite trying
to cool the atmosphere, the political parties had tried to foment trouble
and this resulted in the carnage of 2003 in which the Hindu community was
pointedly targeted, said an observer.
The Kozhikode district administration and
the government in power in the State then failed miserably as there were intelligence
reports of an imminent danger and the Antony government either ignored the
Intelligence warnings or was not serious on such report.
"There is no point in Anotnoy's argument
that the government under him succeeded in containing the situation. After
a gruesome massacre in which nine people were chopped and hacked to death,
how can a politician say that he could contain violence?" asked a former
Congress functionary.