Arson and violence unabated

By Our Staff Reporter

KASARAGOD, JUNE 2. Several shops were gutted at Madakkara near Padanna as arson and violence involving CPI(M) and IUML activists continued for the second day today even as the police deployed more personnel in the area in view of the volatile situation there.

Police opened four rounds in the air to disperse a mob that was on a destruction-spree at Madakkara in the morning. The IG (Northern Range), Mr. Alphonse P. Irayil, and the SP, Mr. S. Sreejith, visited the violence-hit areas under the Chanthera police station limits in the evening.

Other parts of the district remained incident-free as the 12-hour hartal called by the CPI(M) in protest against the attack on its offices here passed off peacefully. Shops and other commercial establishments remained closed in response to the hartal call. The hartal, however, did not hit the road traffic.

The trouble in Madakkara started when CPI(M) and IUML workers clashed in the morning. Several shops were set ablaze by arsonists who went on the rampage.

Both the CPI(M) and the IUML blamed each other for the violence. Nearly 30 shops, including an oil mill, were destroyed in the violence.

Mr. E. K. Hameed, partner of Thoufeeq Oil Mill which was set ablaze, told The Hindu that around 200 CPI(M) workers reached the area at around 11 a.m. and started setting fire to the shops which remained closed in view of the hartal call.

An IUML sympathiser, Mr. Hameed, said the assailants exploded bombs to break open the shutter of the mill.

The assailants first created a road block before carrying out the attacks, said Mr. Shafeeq, whose copra store was among the gutted shops in the area. ``Four or five police personnel deployed in the area were taken aback by the sudden attack and by the time more police personnel were deployed, the shops were in flames,'' he said. Police said that four rounds were fired in the air to disperse the arsonists.

When contacted, the SP, Mr. Sreejith, said that though the situation was now normal in Madakkara and Padanna, the police were taking all measures to check the spread of violence in the nearby areas.

Two companies of the KAP and one company of the State Rapid Action Force were deployed in the trouble-hit areas, he said.

Meanwhile, the LDF MLAs in the district, Mr. K.P. Satheesh Chandran, Mr. K.V. Kunhiraman, Mr. M. Kumaran, and the Kasaragod MP, Mr. T. Govindan, in a joint representation faxed to the Chief Minister, Mr. A. K. Antony, urged him to convene an all-party meeting in the district in a bid to restore peace here.

It would not be fair to hold the peace meeting to be chaired by the Minister, Mr. Cherkalam Abdulla, as violence began in connection with his reception, they said. The Chief Minister himself should take the initiative to bring peace.

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