The LDF Government’s move to grant special remission to the TP Chandrasekharan murder case convicts beset the Kerala Assembly again on Thursday.
The Congress-led Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) staged a walkout in the Assembly for the second time in three days, accusing the government of lying to the House about the well-documented move to grant remissions to convicts in TP Chandrasekharan murder case.
The LDF Government on Thursday made conflicting statements in the Assembly regarding its alleged move to grant special remission to the TP Chandrasekharan murder case convicts.
On the one hand, the Opposition charge that T P Chandrasekharan murder convicts were sought to be illegally released was termed as baseless while on the other, the government announced the suspension of three prison officials at the Kannur Central Jail who had sought police reports on CPI-M workers undergoing life sentences in the case in a move to grant them special remission.
The Opposition brought back the issue to the Assembly through Opposition leader V D Satheesan’s Submission. Satheesan accused the government of diluting prison rules and conditions for the remission of sentence to stack the decks in favour of the convicts.
The Opposition leader said the police had asked K K Rema, MLA, and Chandrasekharan’s wife, about her dispensation to grant clemency for her husband’s killers even when the government swore there was no such move.
He said it was not three, as was till now believed, but four convicts involved in T P’s murder that the LDF Government attempted to release. Trouser Manojan’s name is also included in the Jail Superintendent’s list, he said. T K Rajeesh, Mohammad Shafi, and Annan Sijith are the names already known.
He said the government set the remission process on fast track in contempt of the Kerala High Court’s decision to double the jeopardy of the assassins.
Local Administration Minister MB Rajesh, who replied to the submission in the absence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, said some anomalies had crept into the preparation of the list of prisoners eligible for remission of the sentence as per an amnesty scheme linked to the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence. He said the Additional Chief Secretary, Home, had rectified the irregularities.
Rajesh alleged that the Opposition had come to the House with anti-government placards and banners to create politically advantageous theatre. Enraged Opposition members trooped into the well of the House and mobbed the Speaker’s dais.