Kannur: In a move that could rattle the police top brass, officers at Thalassery Police Station quietly voiced their anger against the LDF government for transferring out two sub-inspectors who were assaulted and abused while standing up to CPM workers’ hooliganism during the Manoli Kavu Theyyam festival.
The station colleagues threw a farewell party to sub-inspectors Deepthi V V and Akhil T K on Wednesday and turned it into a political statement by giving them two loaded mementoes.
The mementoes, bearing the photographs of the two officers, were inscribed with the words: “To the Sub-Inspectors who showed strength during the struggle of resistance, with love from Thalassery Police Station”.
The central plaque was flanked by two striking golden replicas of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, the national emblem symbolising ‘Satyameva Jayate’ (Truth alone triumphs). Each emblem replica rested on a white pedestal adorned with the blue Ashoka Chakra, representing righteousness, dharma, and the rule of law — a symbolic nod to the officers’ unwavering stand in the face of disorder.
When Onmanorama contacted Kannur City Police Commissioner Nidhinraj P on Thursday, he said the words used by Thalassery Police are common in all transfer mementoes. “But in this context, it is being given a political twist,” he said.
During the Manoli Kavu Theyyam festival at Illathu Thazha on the intervening night of February 19 and 20, CPM workers clashed with BJP workers over sloganeering of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’.
A small police team led by SI Akhil intervened, took blows and abuse, but managed to split up the fighting groups.
The CPM workers threatened the officers, saying, “Not one of you will stay at Thalassery station” if they intervened, and reminded them, “We (CPM) are the ones ruling Kerala.”
Thalassery Police registered an FIR based on the complaint filed by Akhil against 27 CPM workers for the assault on police officers.
During the day, Sub-Inspector Deepthi saw the main accused in the police assault case misbehaving with female devotees. When she tried to arrest him, a mob of around 60 CPM workers blocked her path, locked the temple gate, and freed the main accused, Dipin Ravindran, from her custody. On her complaint, Thalassery station registered an FIR against 60 CPM workers.
On March 12, 21 days after CPM workers threatened to shunt out the officers from Thalassery station, the Police Department transferred Sub-Inspector Akhil to Kolavallur Police Station, 20 km east of Thalassery Police Station, and Deepthi was transferred to Kannur Town Police Station.
City Commissioner Nidhinraj had called the transfer routine, implemented every two years. But police sources said routine transfers are effected every three years.
On Wednesday, March 19, the Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan sought permission to move an adjournment motion to discuss the Manoli Kavu issue in the Assembly. But Speaker A N Shamseer, the MLA from Thalassery, dismissed the request, saying the issue is neither “urgent” nor “of any public importance.” The opposition members walked out of the Assembly.
But the police mementoes bring out the displeasure in the police force with the government.