The Congress dug in its heels on the demand for a CBI probe into the Students Federation of India’s (SFI) ‘criminal culpability’ in the suspected death by suicide of Sidharthan J.S., a second-year student at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (KVASU) at Pookode in Wayanad last month.
Youth Congress State president Rahul Mamkoothathil; Mahila Congress State president Jeby Mether, MP; and Kerala Students Union (KSU) president Aloshious Xavier have commenced an indefinite fast in front of the Government Secretariat to press the party’s demand.
‘On trial for dissent’
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan, who inaugurated the protest, said Sidharthan’s untimely death had drawn the curtains back on how the SFI exerted a political chokehold on campuses by putting students to trial for perceived misdemeanours, including dissent and airing contrarian views, and using physical violence, intimidation and the threat of public shaming and ostracism. “Sidharthan is the latest victim of SFI’s cult of violence,” he said.
Mr. Satheesan said the government had arm-twisted the police to let off the SFI activists lightly by arresting them on relatively lenient charges, including abetment of suicide and ragging.
‘Investigate the Dean’
He demanded that the police book the suspects for wilful murder, social shaming, and inquisitorial torture. Mr. Satheesan demanded that the police investigate the college Dean for allowing the SFI to rule the roost in the hostel and campus. Mr. Satheesan accused the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] of imbuing the SFI with a penchant for political violence. He alleged that the suspects had left Sidharthan to starve in his hostel room for three days. Forensic doctors counted 19 severe injuries on Sidharthan’s person.
Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M)-controlled teachers’ organisation in the college had prevented Sidharth’s hostel-mates from speaking to the public or police about the torment he underwent at the hands of SFI leaders.
Severe criticism
Sidharthan’s death had cast the SFI at the centre of a political storm that showed scarce signs of abating. It drew severe flak from Governor Arif Mohammed Khan and Opposition parties. BJP State president K. Surendran, who called on Sidharthan’s parents at their home at Nedumangadu in Thiruvananthapuram, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s silence on the student’s death had sown insecurity in the minds of students, parents, and teachers in the State.
Tourism Minister Mohamed Riyas said civic society could not condone the incident. However, he added that anti-progressive forces were working in tandem with the right-wing corporate media to “publicly lynch” the SFI using a one-off incident as a political foil. He said the SFI was a benign presence on college campuses and a bulwark against the Sangh Parivar’s attempt to sow discord in the higher education sector.
