By Abdul Basith MA, TwoCircles.net,
Thiruvananthapuram: Beemapalli police firing was the biggest of its kind in the history of modern Kerala, but this major tragic incident went unnoticed or was completely ignored. It was on 17th May 2009 when the Kerala police entered a Muslim fishermen colony of Beemapalli and opened fire at the locals killing six and injuring 52; the deceased included a 16-year-old boy playing cricket at the beach, who after being shot was attacked with the bayonet of a gun.
The victims of the police firing were all part of a converted backward Dalit Muslim fishing community, who can’t even pursue a legal fight against the state and the media who always seemed keen on attributing them with terror, communalism and black markets. Stereotyped for various reasons by the public sphere they were even distanced from the mainstream of the Muslim community, with even the Mujahid [Salafi] leaders in Kerala calling them terrorists and polytheists.
According to Jene Rowena, a Delhi University Miranda House faculty and K Ashraf who recently edited a book published by the Thejas Publications on the issue namely Beemapalli Police Vediveppu: Marakunathum Orkunnathum [Beemapalli Police firing: the memorised and forgotten], “it is Kerala’s modern, secular emphasis that helps construct a communal discourse around Beemapalli which is then used to suppress the larger issue of police violence and render it invisible – an invisibility that mar(k)s the progressive claims of Kerala”.
They say, “This invisibility was indeed challenged by some Muslim organizations and community-based newspapers like Madhyamam, Tejas, and the fact finding committee reports of various human right organizations. All of them wrote and spoke against the police version within a few days after the firing. But their voices were not properly ‘heard’ in the secular public sphere of Kerala”. Prior to editing his book Ashraf visited the area, met locals and had made a detailed in-depth study on the issue.
Ashraf’s book tells how this ghettoised fishing community was segregated from the rest of Kerala’s capital city by the secular, modernised pretensions of the public sphere. Beemapalli was by then a Mahal based economically self sufficient region and thus a dust in the eye for the state and the authorities as the fishing community found solutions for most issues within the Mahal Jamaat. It clearly notes that the police in particular and the secular Kerala society with or without its awareness was seeking an opportunity to fulfil their vengeance against a Muslim fishing community, who didn’t even bother or gave ear to mainstream public social and cultural pretensions. Analysing the incident and the later cultural amnesia the book doubts whether it was like the Kerala society was doubtful only on whether the police action was harsh enough or sufficient enough against a group, about whom they are familiar only through the media fed stereotypes.
The book analyses the history of police firings against the Muslim community within the state and its aftereffects on the society. The book talks on the way the state plots for such aggressions and points at the popular stereotypes against the Muslim fishing community to explain why such a brutality was executed and the reasons why it went unnoticed in the public sphere of Kerala. These aspects are closely examined taking into consideration the popular representation of Muslims and the Beemapalli fishing community in the fourth estate and especially in Malayalam cinema which was keen on representing the Muslim fishing community’s life as barbaric.
The book very well explains the Kerala’s own cultural amnesia on this regard and very well reveals the state conspiracies for protecting the aggressors. The book though capable of bringing about serious discussions and includes fact finding reports by human right organisations, field notes and in-depth analysis by Media activists like NP Jishar [who worked closely on the issue and was capable of bringing out the realities of Beemapalli] was published only because Tejas Publciations, which has been constantly conflicting with the secular pretensions of the Kerala public sphere was ready to take up the book.
The book thus exposes the logic of prevailing secularism in Kerala as it notes that it is this ‘communally worst hit secularism’ that fertilised and nurtured the most heinous Police act in the history of the state. Now with the issue stepping into the third anniversary the book should be considered a major resistance from the part of victims and it is indeed a wake up call for the Kerala society who often goes asleep before the bitter realities. The book emphasises on the need of memorising Beemapalli for delivering justice to an innocent, wrongly portrayed community put to weep and forget their grievances without even being able to pursue their legal fight against the state atrocities.
According to Beemapalli residents every thing started on 8th of May, when a goon named Kombu Shibu from the Latheen Catholic Christian dominated Cheriyatura region started a fight with the locals of Beemapalli over the Urs ceremony at the Beemapalli masjid and threatened them telling that he would prevent them from conducting their annual Urs. The dispute went on, and it was on May 16th Kombu Shibu and his gang stopped buses filled with devotees coming to the Urs ceremony. Though it is well known that the Urs ceremony is central to the life of the Beemapalli residents, the police did not take any action against Kombu Shibu.
This led to clashes between some of the Beemapalli residents and Kombu Shibu and his accomplices. With the police refusing to intervene, the tension increased and led to more clashes. On May 17, Sunday, around 2.30 in the afternoon, the police suddenly entered the scene and moved hundred meters into Beemapally and started firing at the Beemapalli residents who were engaged in various activities on the beach.
The police version of the story immediately after the incident was altogether different. According to them, the “violent mob’ of Beemapalli entered Cheriyatura area with “explosives from Nagpur,” and tried to attack the Church and the small Latin Catholic community of Cheriyatura. Ashraf in his book notes that the Police firing took place by around 2:45 pm but the Police was keen on telling that the firing took place by around 3:30 pm, because they wanted to give an impression that all the normal firing procedures were completed prior to this brutal act.
Bringing in a communal element into the issue was thus actually a Police plot intended at creating a public opinion in support of the firing. Media took up the Police version of the story without any hesitation and the issue was later called ‘Cheriyatura firing’, this helped in creating a false impression that the police firing took place at ‘Cheriyatura’ in a way telling that “the police fired at the communally inspired Muslim fishermen who were about to attack the Christian minorities of Cheriyatura”.
The church authorities had initially admitted that the issue was not communal. After the media reports, surprisingly the Latheen Catholic Christians of Cheriyatura too started claiming that they were attacked by the Beemapalli residents, though the fact was that the violence took place nowhere near the Cheriyatura region. Thus the issue when brought into the purview of communal violence easily made the ‘goat a dog’ and the police act got all sought after justifications in the public sphere.
Initially the crime branch which is no way free from the Police influence was entitled to investigate the Police firing. Two police registered cases against the goon leader Kombu Shibu were soon secretly revoked. The crime branch then secretly approached court to defend cases against the Police force. The case was based on a complaint registered by the relatives of a killed victim, accusing the police of murder charges. The petitioner and the Beemapalli Mahal Jamaat then had to approach court against the crime branch move. Thus the crime branch investigation within its each step was time and again pricking the wounds of the victims already undone by a Police firing.
Meanwhile a judicial commission under justice K Ramakrishnan was formed on August 2009; it began functioning on March 17, 2010 and it collected evidences from almost 60 witnesses. The commission collected evidences from former district collector Sanjay Kaul, former minister V Surendran Pillai, DGP Jacob Punoose, IG Gopinathan, ballistic expert Vishnu Poty, former RDO K Biju. The report submitted by former district collector became a row as he had stated that police fired without the permission of district administrator and without giving proper information. There were also allegations that the then Valiyatura SI Johnson was not present for giving evidence due to the influence of higher officials.
Media persons were reluctant to be present before the judicial commission and the correspondent of ‘The Hindu’ news daily, appeared before the court and submitted newspaper cuttings of 17th and 18th May 2009, which were exactly the police version of the story. The Police video and wireless messages on the day of firing were presented before the commission, in the presence of defence counsel Advocate Muhammed Salih.
The K. Ramakrishnan Commission then submitted its report to the Chief Minister on 4th January 2012.
The CBI then started a probe into the source of explosives used in the Beemapalli as Police claimed that the forensic department had ‘recovered highly explosive material’ Neogel, from Cheriyatura soon after the incident. Following the submission of judicial commission report the state government had requested the Centre to order a CBI investigation to find out about the involvement of foreign outfits in the riots.
On 18th April 2012, the members of the Beemapalli Muslim Jamaat have urged the government to make public the report of the judicial commission that probed into the police firing at Beemapalli and to take action against those responsible for the incident.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on 16th May 2012 stated that actions are yet to be taken on the judicial commission report and he said the govt intends to publish it along with the action report.
The Sunni Yuvajana Sangham [SYS] and Sunni Students Federation on 17th May, the 3rd anniversary of the firing, marched to the Secretariat for not bringing in the culprits including top Police officials before the law. Popular Front of India [PFI] also organised a public meeting at Beemapalli and warned the government of widespread protests from the part of organisation, if it is still not ready to publish the judicial commission report. The public meeting demanded to bring to limelight the motto behind the firing, even when there was no situation demanding such an act.
PFI state General Secretary P Abdul Hameed accused the govt of protecting the police officers who fired at the innocent locals and those top officials, who ordered this brutal act. He said that, this relevant issue never became a topic of discussion for the politicians, intellectuals or cultural leaders in Kerala, who would write essays and deliver hour long lectures on each and every minor issue within the state. The religious factions and the Muslim political party who often boasts about the secured state of Muslims in Kerala too have adopted an approach helpful to the culprits. He accused that IUML being a major ally of the UDF govt, is supporting Oommen Chandy’s decision of not publishing the commission report.
Even if the report is published the effectiveness of such reports published and taken for discussion in the legislative assembly has always remained a question mark in the history of the state. Taking into consideration the Poonthura riot of 1992, the Aravindhaksha Menon commission took charge on 18th September 1992 and submitted its report on 11th July1994. But the Nayanar govt took the report for discussion in the legislative assembly only on 17th September 1996 and no effective measures were taken even after that.
As noted by NP Jishar, the Kerala public sphere must be surprised for that after this “communal violence” and “plots for a widespread communal riot”, there was not a single instance of dispute between these two communities in the region for last three years. This indeed is making a mock at the media who blindly took up the Police version and the Kerala society who without any resistance sipped all those filthy dirt of injustice fed by the media. Citing these now the state, police and the media could boast of having stopped the ‘communal tendencies of Beemapalli’ but now the resistance from the part of victims is indeed exposing many such claims and fake stories by the state, as “truth won’t stay hidden for too long”.
[With inputs from K Ashraf who is doing his research at Johannesburg University, South Africa]