Kannur: It's been five months since E Chithralekha (47), the Dalit autorickshaw driver who fought a long battle against CPM workers' hooliganism and caste discrimination, passed away. However, there is no let-up in the targeting of her family by Marxist activists.

On Tuesday, a group of suspected CPM activists assaulted her widower Shreeshkant M (49) with an iron rod and broke his left leg after barging into his house at Kuthirathadam near Kattampally in Kannur's Valapattanam. "My surgery is tomorrow," Shreeshkant sent a feeble voice message from the bed at Kannur District Hospital on Thursday.

Though he said he was attacked by a group of four to five persons, Valapattanam police have booked only one person named Shaji, a CPM worker. Shaji has been booked for criminal trespass, wrong restraint, and voluntarily causing hurt under sections 329 (3), 126 (2), and 118 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). If convicted, he faces a sentence ranging from one year to life imprisonment.

Shreeshkant told the police that the assault occurred because he was collaborating with a journalist to document the biography of his late wife, Chithralekha. His daughter, Megha E, added that CPM activists might have been further provoked by his decision to drive Chithralekha's autorickshaw in Kannur city — an action that had previously led to suspected party activists burning their autorickshaw on two separate occasions.

On January 7, Shreeshkant and the journalist working on the biography left for Edat in Payyanur, Chithralekha's ancestral place, nearly 40 km from Kattampally. "My father wanted to give the journalist a few photographs from my mom's," said Megha.

When Shreeshkant returned home around 6.30 pm, the group of men forcibly entered his house, dragged him out and assaulted him. Valapattanam police said the accused had gone into hiding. "The motive for the attack would be known only after questioning him on Friday," the sub-inspector investigating the case said.

Megha said that her late mother's autorickshaw permit was renewed and transferred to her name on January 1. "My father began driving the autorickshaw from the AKG Hospital stand (in Kannur) the very next day, and by the fifth day, he was assaulted. The violence my mother endured during her lifetime is now being directed at him," she said. The autorickshaw was given to Chithralekha by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "We have to pay the EMI of Rs 8,200 per month. How are we expected to pay the loan if we are not allowed to work," Megha said.

Chithralekha, a Dalit woman, and Shreeshkant from the Thiyya community, considered higher in the caste hierarchy, were subjected to violent attacks since they got married in 2003. They were also socially boycotted in the 'party village'.

The couple had to leave their house at Edat and move to Kannur. But they could not escape the violence. Chithralekha, a nurse, started driving autorickshaw for a living, but suspected CPM workers set her vehicle on fire twice, in 2005 and 2023.

When the Congress-led UDF government sanctioned a five-cent plot to her, the CPM staged a massive protest and got the financial assistance stayed after the LDF came to power in 2016. She had gone on indefinite strike several times seeking social justice in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram. Once, the banner at her protest site read:  'Against the casteist attacks of CPM'. She succumbed to pancreatic cancer and jaundice on October 5, 2024, leaving Shreeshkant to face yet another uphill battle against the formidable force in Kannur.