Kerala - Kochi   

Police inaction, says Chandy

KOCHI: Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy has alleged that it is the inactiveness of the police that has led to the death of a policeman during the SFI-ABVP standoff at NSS College, Changanassery, on Friday.

He told a joint news conference with Kerala Congress (Mani) leader K.M. Mani here that tension had been brewing on the campus for a week over college elections. Had the police nipped the trouble in the bud, the situation would not have taken such an ugly turn, he said.

Mr. Chandy wanted that any investigation into the policeman’s death should also cover the circumstances which had led to the violence and the incidents that had occurred in the college over the past week. If impartial action was not taken, such incidents would recur, he said.

He accused the SFI of acting out of `arrogance of power’ as the CPI(M) was ruling the State. The SFI, according to him, believed that no other student organisation had the right to exist on the campuses where it dominated. The ABVP also had this kind of a mindset, he said.

Mr. Chandy also alleged that SFI activists had, after the KSU defeated the SFI in the Kottayam SME College election, raided the houses where KSU activists stayed and attacked them. A student who had won the election had been kidnapped, beaten up and dumped near the General Hospital. Though he himself had named the SFI leader who had organised the attack, and even provided his phone number, the police had not taken any action, Mr. Chandy said.

Mr. Mani said the policeman who died at Changanassery was the victim of the collapse of law and order in the State.

Friday’s violence was the upshot of the government’s wrong policies. It had let the SFI do whatever it wanted. Even policemen were not safe now, he said. .

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