The Kilikollur incident in which vengeful men in uniform foisted false cases on two brothers and bashed them up inside the police station has once again pushed to the fore a puzzle that has constantly troubled the public mind. What makes policemen think they are a law unto themselves?
Former top police officers and lawyers Onmanorama talked to unanimously attributed police lawlessness to "political patronage". "After the LDF came to power in 2016, it has to be said that the patronage came right from the top, from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan himself," a former DGP said on the condition of anonymity.
What set the tone was the Chief Minister's response to the killing of two suspected Maoists in the Karulai region of Nilambur forest in 2016. When asked why he was silent about the killings, Pinarayi had then said: "The Government will not do anything that will affect the morale of the police force."
Six years later, and even after a series of reported cases of custodial torture and deaths, the Chief Minister, who also holds the Home portfolio, persists in his reluctance to tell his men to behave.
Mystery of accidental blasts
Last July, after an accidental blast killed two Assamese rag pickers in Kannur, a telling statistic of police inefficiency suddenly enlarged itself and presented before the Chief Minister: The police have not been able to make head or tail of more than 80 per cent of accidental blasts in the past five years.
Innocent children and women were killed or maimed for life in several accidental bomb blasts in various parts of Kannur like Naduvanad, Maruthayi, Thillenkeri, Panur, Koladi, Kudiyanmala and Cheruvancheri.
Instead of pulling up the police force, the Chief Minister used the opportunity to indulge in some political rhetoric. He said the RSS and extremist Muslim outfits like the PFI and the SDPI were behind these attempts to "undermine peace in Kerala" and blamed the Congress for not criticising these communal forces enough.
Opposition leader V D Satheesan had a counter for which the Chief Minister has still not offered a reply. "If as he says the RSS and SDPI are behind most of the attacks, why has he not taken action against them in any of the blast cases. Forget the cases involving the CPM but seven of their own (CPM) men have been killed in bomb blasts. Why has his police not caught the culprits at least in these cases?"
Here is yet another fact that should embarrass a CPM home minister. His police has not nabbed even one RSS worker the CPM had alleged was behind the bomb blast near a public function attended by the CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan at Thalassery in Kannur on January 26, 2017.
Man who occupied Tipu's throne
Even when top police officials behaved in the most inappropriate, or even cringe-worthy manner, the Chief Minister stood like a rock behind them.
Take for instance former police chief Loknath Behera's alleged association with fake antique dealer Monson Mavunkal. Photographs of Behera with Monson's 'treasures', especially the one in which he is seen perched on the edge of 'Tipu's throne' with the 'staff of Moses' in his hands like a happy, confused simpleton, had made Kerala police an object of ridicule.
Yet, in defence of his DGP, Pinarayi said something funnier. "It was Behera himself who had asked the intelligence wing to probe the affairs of the fraudster," he said in October 2021, as if suggesting that Behera was on a recce mission while he went around admiring Monson's fake artefacts showcased in his garish Kochi home.
But this lame excuse was not enough to answer a straightforward poser. The Chief Minister himself had said the intelligence wing had all details about Monson by December 2019. If so, what was the police department doing with this Intelligence report for nearly two years? And during this time, there was evidence of top police officers hobnobbing with shady characters like Anitha Pullayil, a close associate of Monson.
Pinarayi rephrases Sandesham's Sreenivasan
Earlier, in August 2021, the police had entered Vattakkolly tribal settlement, Attappady, in huge numbers at the crack of dawn, broke into homes and roughed up tribals who were sleeping. When the opposition questioned the police action, the Chief Minister responded with his variation of 'don't ever talk a word about Poland'. "There is a conspiracy to undermine the police force in Kerala," he said, apparently seething with anger.
Inside the Assembly, instead of explaining the police action, the Chief Minister read out from a written text the good deeds of the police during the floods and the pandemic. The Chief Minister's message was loud and clear: Come what may, I will not allow even a minor criticism of the police force.
Pinarayi used the same defence when A V George, an accused in the custodial death of 26-year-old Sreejith, was promoted as Kozhikode city police commissioner. It was the Rural Tiger Force, a special squad headed by George, that took Sreejith into custody in 2018.
When he was asked why George was given preferential treatment, Pinarayi said: "The Home Department will not allow itself to be used as a pawn by others to settle scores. Whoever has done something wrong will not be spared. But we will also not crucify officers who had functioned in the proper manner."
High range benefactor
Patronage was evident in the custodial death of a small-time financier named Raj Kumar at the Nedumkandam Police Station in 2019, too. In this case, it was CPM MLA M M Mani who vehemently came out in support of the police; Mani was also allegedly involved in the case. He was then power minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan ministry.
"Members of the Congress party are behind the financial fraud that involved Raj Kumar. Instead of finding the real culprits, it is unfortunate that the Congress is trying to implicate the Idukki SP and poor me in this case," Mani had said.
For a change, even Pinarayi found this a bit far-fetched. "If someone was in illegal detention for some days, the police chief in the district should have been aware of this," the chief minister said, effectively cutting Mani to size.
Incidentally, this was the only time the Chief Minister admitted to a lapse in the functioning of the police.
