The ruling front and Opposition locked horns in the Assembly on Wednesday over the lurking menace of crude bombs to unsuspecting citizens in Kannur.
The death of two scrap pickers from Assam, a father and son, in a deadly country bomb explosion at Mattannur had triggered the debate. The Zero Hour fracas ended in an Opposition walkout.
The family had died after they accidentally triggered an unexploded crude bomb they had chanced upon when rummaging around in a garbage heap for saleable discards. The bomb maker had concealed the device in a seemingly harmless steel box. It exploded when the duo tried to open it out of curiosity.
Congress member Sunny Joseph sought an adjournment debate on the incident. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said crude bombs were the legacy of Kannur's tit-for-tat political violence.
He said the deadly devices lay in wait for unsuspecting children at play, civilians and needy scavengers in empty plots, homes and garbage heaps. Crude bombs stashed away by criminal gangs had maimed scores. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was unconcerned. He felt the Kannur explosion was unworthy of the Assembly's time.
“Instead, the Chief Minister, who entered the Assembly in 1977 on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) votes, is lecturing the Opposition on political violence,” he said. Several Communist Party of India (MArxist) [CPI(M)) and RSS cadres had died making bombs to target each other. The police investigations had reached a dead-end.
Inability of the police to arrest bomb-makers and throwers had emboldened them. Under Mr. Vijayan's watch, the CPI(M) had slaughtered several Congress workers.
Mr. Satheesan said crude bombs were integral to the assassin's tool kit. The CPI(M) used a lethal home-made incendiary device to fell party rebel T.P. Chandrasekharan at Onchiyam in Kannur in 2012 The CPI(M) still harboured vengeance against his widow K. K. Rema, MLA.
Mr. Vijayan said the locality where the explosion occurred was a hotspot of SDPI-RSS violence. The "communal outfits" were engaged in retaliatory violence and the organisations had stockpiled arms. The police were on their heels. He claimed political murders had come down in Kerala after the LDF assumed power in 2016.
Mr. Vijayan said the Congress was unwilling to name fundamentalist organisations responsible for the violence. It was willing to sacrifice the truth on the altar of political expediency.
Hence, the Congress blamed the CPI(M) for the violence to make the law and order situation in Kerala look bleak. People would see through the Opposition's political gambit, he said.
Speaker M.B. Rajesh rejected the adjournment motion.
