NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Clamour for reopening of Rajan case

D Jose in Trivandrum

Senior Congress leader K Karunakaran's disclosure that he was kept in the dark regarding the death of Calicut Engineering College student P Rajan during the Emergency has led to a clamour for reopening the sensational case.

Those demanding a reinvestigation believe that Karunakaran's statement that the police officers had concealed the truth from him was sufficient to make a case against police officials.

The Supreme Court had exonerated the officials for want of evidence to substantiate that Rajan was tortured to death.

The accused had never admitted that the student, taken into custody in connection with the Kayanna police station attack in February 1976, died in custody.

Rajan's father, Prof Eachara Warrier, who pursued the case at various levels during and after the Emergency, was told by Karunakaran and others that he had gone underground.

Karunakaran, who had to resign as chief minister in 1977 in connection with the case, had said that the officials tried to misguide him by stating that the student was alive. He said they had shown him wrong pictures to prove that Rajan was alive.

Although Warrier does not believe Karunakaran, he feels a fresh investigation could bring the culprits to book. Warrier said that information gathered from various sources, including his son's friends, revealed that he was tortured to death.

Warrier said that Rajan was taken into custody along with his friends on February 29, 1976 for questioning on the theft of a gun from the Kayyanna police station. They were taken to the Kakkayam camp and tortured, to elicit information regarding the whereabouts of the gun.

Rajan, he said, succumbed to torture on March 2.

Warrier said that his son was not a Naxalite as the police and many others believed. Rajan was only a friend of a senior Naxalite leader at the engineering college. Though both had worked together in the college's arts club, Rajan had refused to join the Naxalite group, citing domestic responsibilities, Warrier said.

Many believe that Karunakaran's disclosure will serve as a breakthrough in investigations.

Appukkuttan Vallikkunnu, a journalist who covered the incident, felt that there was sufficient scope for investigating the role of Karunakaran, who was then home minister, and police officials who were acquitted by the court.

In a letter to Chief Minister E K Nayanar, Appukkuttan, who worked as associate editor of the Communist Party of India-Marxist mouthpiece Deshabhimni said that the government, which paid compensation to the victim's father, had to bring the guilty to book.

"Karunakaran's statement makes it unambiguously clear that Rajan was tortured to death," Appukuttan said. He said that he had provided evidence of the involvement of several police officials in the torture of Rajan in his reports.

The government is not averse to reopening the case on the basis of Karunakaran's disclosure.

The high court had ordered reinvestigation into the Naxalite Varghese case on the basis of a similar disclosure by a police constable. Senior CPI-M leader and Left Democratic Front convenor V S Achuthanandan has also urged the government to consider reopening the Rajan case.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report