{"id":232779,"date":"2015-02-23T17:08:20","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T11:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=232779"},"modified":"2015-02-23T17:08:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T11:38:20","slug":"portent-of-worse-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/portent-of-worse-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"Portent of worse to come?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Well
Well of despair <\/b>The mob dumped household goods of a Muslim family into a well, Photo: Harris Kuttippuram<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n“I am scared, the memories of that day still haunt me,\u201d says Kunjami. The 50-year-old belongs to one of the 50-odd families that have been running from pillar to post to recover the valuables they had lost during the riots that took place on 23 January in Nadapuram panchayat of Kozhikode district, Kerala.
\nThe violence was triggered by the killing of an activist of the CPM\u2019s youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). On the night of 22 January, 20-year-old Shibin Bhaskaran was hacked to death by a gang allegedly linked with the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a constituent of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF). Six others, including two Youth Congress activists, were seriously injured in the attack.
\nThe prime suspect, Theyambadi Ismail, who was arrested along with two others from Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, two weeks after the incident, is said to be closely associated with the IUML.
\nBhaskaran\u2019s killing was enough to rekindle the long-dormant communal tension between the Hindus and Muslims in the region. In the ensuing violence, the houses of Muslims were looted and set ablaze. Local leaders of the IUML\u00a0blame the CPM\u00a0for the violence.
\n\u201cWe had never witnessed violence on this scale,\u201d says Kunjami. \u201cI lost everything, including jewellery and important documents. The marauders burnt everything they came across. They spared nothing, not even the stock of medicines of my ailing father-in-law.\u201d
\nWhile the affected villages are limping back to normalcy and the curfew imposed soon after the violence has now been lifted, the police are still keeping a strict watch on the entry of \u2018outsiders\u2019. Relatives of the victims, too, have to undergo multiple security checks before entering the villages. Earlier, the CPM\u00a0had demanded that outsiders should not be allowed to visit the riot-hit villages. Locals allege that the party perhaps did not want people elsewhere to know the full extent of the violence perpetrated by its cadres.
\nReturning to his home after three weeks, Hameed, 40, says that if the police had been as sincere in their duty at the time of the attack as they are now, people like him would not have had to suffer\u00a0so much.
\nHameed vividly remembers the fateful day. On the morning of 23 January, his pregnant wife informed him that some men were destroying the posters, billboards and flags of the IUML\u00a0in the streets. Anticipating more trouble, he took their two children to his brother\u2019s house in another locality. When he returned, he saw that a mob of around 200 men was attacking his neighbour\u2019s home.
\n\u201cFearing that we would be their next target, my wife and I decided to flee immediately,\u201d he says. \u201cAs she couldn\u2019t run fast enough, I had to lift her on my shoulders and run as fast as I could. The attackers had already started pelting stones at our house.\u201d
\nTears running down his cheeks, Hameed remembers how he called the police frantically to come to their rescue. \u201cI called them five times and pleaded that they should at least help my wife escape, but to no avail,\u201d he says. Fortunately, an ambulance was passing by and he helped his wife hop on to it before running away.
\nKM Aboobacker, a local IUML\u00a0leader and social worker, says that the mob attacked and looted his house as well as that of his son. \u201cFirst, a group came to identify the Muslim houses. A second group pelted stones to create panic. And a third group barged into houses, looting some valuables and setting the rest ablaze,\u201d he says. The mob that attacked his son\u2019s house threw household items such as a refrigerator, washing machine and LPG\u00a0cylinders into a well and torched his car and motorcycle.
\n\u201cEven though the Nadapuram police station is equipped to handle insurgencies, the police failed to stop the violence perpetrated by the mob, claiming that they were understaffed,\u201d says Aboobacker. The marauders were able to roam around freely and perpetrate violence for nearly six hours. Most of the houses had only women and children as the men are mostly employed in the Gulf countries. The police got into action only in the evening, but by then, most of the victims had fled their homes.
\nBoth the CPM\u00a0and the IUML accused each other of being responsible for the violence, while the Congress desisted from blaming either its rival or its ally.
\nVV Muhammad Ali, district vice-president of the Muslim Youth League, alleges that the CPM was playing the communal card. \u201cWe regret Bhaskaran\u2019s death. It should have been avoided. But we cannot tolerate the way the houses of innocent Muslims were targeted,\u201d he says.
\nAli also accuses the police of being in cahoots with the CPM and says that a judicial probe is necessary to bring the facts behind the violence to light and ensure that the guilty are punished. \u201cFor quite some time now, a criminal mindset has afflicted the politics in the region. We must put an end to that,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want all the communities to coexist peacefully.\u201d
\nOn the other hand, CPM district secretary P Mohanan Master blamed the IUML for the planned attacks on the houses of Muslims. \u201cWe strongly suspect a conspiracy behind the violence as it was carried out in front of the police force. What were the police doing? Why didn\u2019t they try to stop the violence? This shows that there was some conspiracy behind the incident,\u201d he says.
\nThe police, however, have rubbished these allegations. \u201cThere is no basis to the allegation that the police were inactive. We could not open fire or order a lathicharge when Bhaskaran\u2019s body was being taken to the funeral. No one was injured as we were quick in dousing the fires and shifting the people to safe locations,\u201d says District Police Chief (Rural) PH Ashraf.
\nEven as the blame game continues, CP Salam, a block panchayat member, resigned from the cpm in protest against the party\u2019s alleged role in the violence. \u201cI was hurt by the callous silence of my party with regard to denouncing the violence. Neither the police nor the political leaders came to the rescue of the people. I resigned to protest against the apathy of the system,\u201d he says.
\nSalam also rues the fact that no cultural or literary figure of Kerala has denounced the violence even after so many days. \u201cThis lack of sympathy for the victims strengthens the hands of the criminals. In the past three weeks, no efforts have been made to heal the wounds and work towards restoring communal harmony. The government and the police have failed in protecting the people and ensuring peace,\u201d he says.
\nIncidentally, Akbar Kakkattil is the only writer in Kerala to have openly condemned the attacks. He wrote in one of his columns that the issue is related to unnecessary problems created by a certain section of people and urged political parties to refrain from taking sides in personal rivalries between individuals.
\nMK Bhaskaran, father of the slain DYFI\u00a0activist, says that no compensation would be enough to make up for the loss of his son. \u201cThe demolished structures can be repaired and rebuilt, but can I get my son back?\u201d he asks.
\nMeanwhile, the local youth see the violence of 22-23 January as a portent of worse to come. \u201cThe danger is that extremist forces such as the Popular Front of India could be eyeing this as a perfect opportunity to infiltrate the villages here,\u201d says Ajmal, a local youth.
\nletters@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The communal violence in Nadapuram has torn to shreds the CPM\u2019s claim of being a secular force. Adarsh Onnatt reports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":232782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[6358,1103,1605,6359,466,6360],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}