By Najiya O, TwoCircles.Net
Fresh raids by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Kerala in recent days has left families of individuals accused to be Maoists perplexed, and activists alarmed, reports Najiya O for the TwoCircles.net.
Kerala: The International Labour Day on May 1 was a busy day for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Kerala. The NIA conducted two raids in the Kozhikode district and interrogated three people including a journalist and two others in connection with the Pantheerankavu Maoist case.
All three were taken into custody for interrogation and later released on condition that they should be present at the NIA office in Kochi later. They have reportedly refuted any links with the youth already arrested in the case.
The raids have come barely four days after the NIA submitted its charge sheet in the case, naming Alan Shuaib as the prime accused. Thaha Fazal is the second accused and CP Usman said to be absconding is the third accused in the case taken up by the NIA in December 2019 from the Kerala Police.
The chargesheet reportedly alleges that the young men were active members of the banned Maoist organization.
Meanwhile, the Kerala police have raided the houses of the brothers of CP Jaleel, said to be a Maoist and killed in a police encounter in Wayanad in March 2019.
The police have reportedly seized documents, mobile phones and laptop from the houses in Malappuram.
There have also been reports that more than 20 people in different parts of Kerala, including a doctor, lawyers and human rights activists, would be further questioned in connection with the case.
Alan Shuaib and Thaha Fazal were arrested by the Kerala police in the first week of November 2019 from Kozhikode, and charged with the UAPA. CP Usman, who was also with them, is understood to have run away on seeing the police and has been absconding since.
The arrest became controversial in the state, especially since the young men and their families were active members of the communist party. The charging of the UAPA also was criticized as the CPI(M) in power had taken a strong stand against the law in the Parliament and spoken against it outside but slapped the charges on its own members in their ruling state.
Sabitha Sekhar, the mother of Alan Shuaib, told TwoCircles.net that the communist party’s policy is against the UAPA. “But the left government in Kerala has stood with charging it and that is a mistake.
The responsibility lies with the Home Ministry and the CPI (M) has not been able to rectify it. However, we will continue our life of secular left politics,” she said.
Sekhar said that they are not depending on the party for the case. “We will move things legally on our own with the help and support of our friends,” she added.
Dr Azad, convenor of the Alan-Thaha Manushyavakasha Samithi (Alan-Thaha Human Rights Committee) told TwoCircles.net that the UAPA was charged by the Kerala police against Alan and Thaha upon their arrest.
“The case came up out of nowhere when there was no issue or problem of any kind,” he said.
The Committee chaired by veteran journalist BRP Bhasker is trying to bring up the matter as a human rights issue before the government and the public.
Thaha Fazal (24), a student of journalism hailing from Pantheerankavu in Kozhikode comes from an economically weak family. His father is not able to work following an accident a few years back. His mother works at a tailoring shop. His brother is studying and Thaha used to work while studying to support the family.
The family is finding it hard to find resources to fight the cases and are relying on the help of others.
Alan Shuaib (20), is a student of law hailing from Thiruvannur in Kozhikode. His parents are known in the social life of the city as his father Shuaib has been a leader of the CPI (M). His mother Sabitha and her sister Sajitha Madathil (an actress in Malayalam films) are active on the social media and in social issues.
While talking to media, both families had expressed their disbelief and discontent in the attitude of the party and its leaders towards this issue.
The police arrested Alan and Thaha on the evening of November 1 and raided their houses early morning the next day. A cellphone was taken into custody from Alan’s house and two books, a laptop and flags from Thaha’s house, according to reports.
However, the police then explained that the boys had been under observation for five years and that they were ‘urban Naxals’.
The Sessions Court in Kozhikode, the district court and later the Kerala High Court denied them bail upholding the charges under UAPA and the need for further investigation.
Charged with sections 20, 32 and 39 of the UAPA, the boys were sent to judicial custody. On the basis of the police claims that they had worked with the banned CPI (Maoist), the case was taken over by the NIA in December. However, the NIA court turned down their bail application in February.
The arrests were widely criticized in Kerala.
Initially, some leaders of the CPI (M), especially some in the district leadership, spoke against the arrest. But later all including the state and district leadership as well as the Chief Minister denounced them, even as CPI (M) national general secretary Sitaram Yechury announced that the party would provide them legal assistance.
The CM reportedly said in a press meet that ‘they were arrested not for drinking tea’. Certain leaders went a step further to connect Maoists and Muslim terrorists. In the literature festival held in Kozhikode in January, there was a session on ‘Maoism and Islamism’.
Meanwhile, after the charge sheet was filed by the NIA in the case, the Alan-Thaha Manushyavakasa Samithi accused that the NIA has not been able to present any evidence against the two even after months of investigation. The Samithi urged the Kerala Home Ministry to request bail for the two from the NIA court.
It had earlier requested the Chief Minister to take initiative to release them from prison in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, hinting towards the UN Human Rights Commission direction to release maximum prisoners and to give priority to political prisoners.
The CPI (M) announced the expulsion of Alan and Thaha from the party in mid-February. Till then the party district leadership had not denounced them, though the state leadership had spoken otherwise.
Even though the leftist parties and organizations are generally said to be in the forefront against injustice and human rights violations, the absence of the CPI (M) and sister organizations in any opposition to the arrests was evident in this particular case.
Collectives with pro-people policies also spoke for them, such as those leftist groups which are not in the official fold of the CPI (M). Later the Congress and the Muslim League also raised voice for them in the Assembly in January, which prompted the Chief Minister to write to the central Home Minister requesting to transfer the case from the NIA to the state police, after his initial hesitation that the state cannot do anything on the NIA taking up the case.
The Opposition leaders also visited the houses of the accused youth and offered financial support to run the case.
“The most important thing for us now is to get our child back. We are trying for bail, but the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown has made everything slow,” Sekhar said.
The family do not possess a copy of the charge sheet, which is needed to apply for bail. They also couldn’t meet Alan for two months, though ‘he calls whenever he can’.
“Alan has been experiencing a life of quarantine for six months,” said Alan’s father Shuaib, when asked about his life after the arrest of his son. “We began experiencing quarantine life much before the virus outbreak and lockdown.”
Though Kerala is seen as a comparatively calm and peaceful state, a considerable number of UAPA cases have been charged there.
Presently there are three cases related to Maoist activity investigated by the NIA in the state.
Though attacks by Maoists are not common, suspected Maoists were seen in hilly parts of the state where they had collected food and other essentials from the local people and pasted posters against the government acts or actions against Maoists.
Also, there have been a few encounters with the police in which suspected Maoists were killed like those that took place in Palakkad, Wayanad and Nilambur etc in recent years.
However, it would also be interesting to note that several rulings of the different High Courts and the Supreme Court of the country had in various times upheld that it was not a crime to be sympathetic to the Maoist ideology or to possess Maoist literature.
Now that the NIA has filed charge sheet in the case and more interrogations are expected to come up in the coming days, activists are concerned with the human rights aspects in the matter.