'Life-saving' remarks: Kerala CM faces probe over inciting violence

Kochi: Nearly a year after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan made the controversial ‘life-saving’ remarks, a court has ordered a probe into a complaint accusing him of inciting violence. The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ernakulam, on Wednesday ordered the station house officer, Ernakulam Central Police Station, to conduct an investigation into a complaint filed by District Congress Committee (DCC) President Muhammed Shiyas.

In his complaint, the Congress leader sought a probe against the chief minister, saying he made a ‘provocative and instigating speech on November 21, 2023’ during the state government’s public outreach tour called Nava Kerala Yatra. Shiyas said the chief minister incited assault on Congress activists who protested against the state government in various parts of the state with his comments, justifying the attack on a group of protesters by activists of the CPM and its youth wing DYFI on November 20, 2023, at Kalliassery in Kannur.

Shiyas termed the court order a setback to the chief minister's 'arrogance'. "Courts are the hope of common people against the anti-democratic stances of authoritarian rulers. Hence, I look at this order as a relief," he said.

In a speech made in Kannur on November 21, Vijayan termed the attack by his party workers 'a life-saving act’. In the following days, the Nava Kerala Sadas witnessed a series of such assaults on protesting Youth Congress and KSU activists.

“Being a senior political leader and the chief minister holding the home portfolio, the speech made by him amounted to abetment and instigation of physical assault,” Shiyas said in his complaint, dated April 2, 2024.

In the complaint, Shiyas has listed the alleged attacks on protesters during Nava Kerala Sadas, such as those that happened at Areekode on November 30, 2023, Erumalappady near Kothamangalam on December 10 and Kayamkulam on December 12. He said he moved the court as the complaints he filed with the SHO, central police station on November 24, 2023, and the city police commissioner on November 27, 2023, yielded no results.

“The police are afraid of taking any action against the chief minister, and they are not even prepared to make any investigation,” he said.

The magistrate court’s order comes a few days after the Crime Branch (CB) gave a clean chit to Vijayan's gunman and security officials in a case relating to an alleged assault on Youth Congress-KSU workers during the Nava Kerala Yatra when it reached Alappuzha last December.

In the final report submitted before the judicial first class magistrate court in Alappuzha, the CB stated that the police officials—Anil Kumar and Sandeep—were merely carrying out their professional responsibilities by preventing two Youth Congress-KSU workers, Ajay Jewel Kuriakose and A D Thomas, from rushing towards the vehicle of the Chief Minister, who comes under Z-plus category security cover.

Fuming at the police's move, KPCC president K Sudhakaran stated that the crime branch's action of submitting a report exonerating the chief minister's gunman and security personnel is a challenge to the rule of law.