Fisherwoman Mary Amma and the mystery of the scattered fishes in Parippally

It was alleged that on July 28, a police team had snatched the vessel of an old fisherwoman selling fish along the road at Parippally and dumped the contents along a nearby drain. The visuals of the dumped fish had gone viral. This was seen as a shocking example of police high-handedness in the name of pandemic control.

The issue was raised in the Assembly by Karunagapally MLA C R Mahesh on August 2. He said the fisherwoman, Mary Amma, had lost fish worth Rs 15,000. He wanted the government to adequately compensate her. He also called for a probe into the incident.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan did call for a probe, by the State Police Chief himself. However, instead of a probe into the incident, the chief minister asked his DGP to find out how the visuals of fishes scattered all around the dirt were artificially created and spread through a local news channel.

Pinarayi said no such thing as the hurling of the fish had happened. Reading from a police report submitted to him, Pinarayi said that the police officials had only asked the fisherwomen to move out of the area.

He said some fisherwomen were trying to sell fish at Pampuram ward, which was part of the Kalluvathukkal panchayat (Kollam) that has been included in the 'D' category where there is critical spread of the virus. When they were fined, he said they moved to Pampuram, which too was in the 'D' category, and sold fish.

The chief minister was speaking in the plural. He seems to have combined two events as one. In fact, there were two separate incidents. One set of fisherwomen selling fish at Neeronthi, along the Paripally-Varkala road, were first fined and later, when they still seen in the area, had their vessels thrown away with its contents.

Mary Amma, about whom Mahesh had mentioned, was not in the group that was fined. She was alone in Pampuram. The chief minister conflated these two events and told the Assembly that a set of fisherwomen moved from Neeronthi to Pampuram.

A source in Parippally Police station said that they had only asked Mary Amma to wind up and clear away as the place was in the 'D' category.

Mary Amma now seems at a disadvantage. Though the alleged incident had happened in broad daylight, there are no witnesses. "Many in the vicinity said they had seen the police vehicle arrive in the area but had not seen the police throwing Mary Amma's fish vessel," a Fisheries Department worker who had visited the area as part of an official probe told Onmanorama.

"The house near where Mary Amma was seated had a CCTV looking into the road. So we asked the lady of the house to share the visuals. The woman first said the CCTV would have clearly captured what had happened and said she would share the video once her son returns. Later, when we contacted her, she said the CCTV was switched off during that time," the Fisheries Department official said.

Pampuram panchayat member Ajayakumar D L, a CPM worker, said the behaviour of the police was unacceptable if they had actually done it. "Mary Amma is a poor woman but we are not sure whether what she says is true. Her fish lay scattered some 100 metres away from where she sat. If the police had indeed thrown it, they would not have dragged all her fish 100 metres and then flung the vessel. It is hard to believe," he said.

We asked Ajayakumar whether he thought the poor woman would have purposefully thrown her fish, her only means of income, in the dirt. “That is also hard to believe,” he said.

Though none had seen the police destroying her fish, many had seen Mary Amma crying and desperately trying to pick up the fish from the slush. When we asked whether Mary Amma was putting up a show, Ajayakumar just smiled.