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Kerala adoption row: Accused removed from CPI(M) posts
Two days ago, CPI (M) district secretary Anavoor Nagappan said the party had sought an explanation from Jayachandran, but he went missing. Jayachandran later said he was not absconding and attended some of the party functions.
The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday removed P S Jayachandran, a party leader accused of kidnapping his daughter’s newborn child and later handing it over to Kerala State Council for Child Welfare-run orphanage for adoption, from all party posts and committees, and announced a commission of inquiry on the matter. Jayachandran is a Peroorkada local committee member and a senior leader of the party trade union wing Centre for Indian Trade Unions.
A party leader said that the local committee in Peroorkada took the decision on the direction of the district committee. “The CPI(M) is under pressure to take action against him (Jayachandran), but his contention that the party was aware of everything restrains it somehow. Since the case turned into a national issue, the party had to take strict action unmindful of its consequences,” another senior leader said.
Two days ago, CPI (M) district secretary Anavoor Nagappan said the party had sought an explanation from Jayachandran, but he went missing. Jayachandran later said he was not absconding and attended some of the party functions.
Anupama Chandran, the victim in the case, said the move is an eyewash and demanded a state committee-level probe into the missing child’s case.
“Nothing will emerge if the case is investigated by the local committee. I want a high-level inquiry, and women leaders should be part of it,” she said in the state capital on Wednesday. Jayachandran was not available for comment. Earlier, he said the party was aware of everything, but it disowned him when issue took the national stage.
A senior leader of the party, who did not want to be quoted, said further action will be taken against Jayachandran and officials of the Child Welfare Committee, who allegedly colluded with him in the adoption. A local court in the state capital will hear the anticipatory bail petitions filed by Jayachandran and five others on Thursday. Last Monday, a family court had stayed the adoption of the baby till Nov 1.
In a police complaint filed last week, Anupama alleged that her father took away her newborn child and handed it over to a Kerala State Council for Child Welfare-run orphanage in the state capital after its birth last October. The child was reportedly given to a family from Andhra Pradesh in a hurry, flouting adoption rules, she claimed. But Jayachandran said he sent the baby to the government-run children’s home in Thiruvananthapuram with his daughter’s consent. Chandran signed on a stamp paper to that effect, he said, but the former said she did so under duress.
Chandran’s one-day fast before the state secretariat on Saturday for her child attracted national attention. Many senior leaders of the CPI (M), including Politburo members Brinda Karat and M A Baby, decried inaction in her case. Despite the senior leaders’ intervention, the party failed to take action against him. The issue also figured prominently in the state assembly. Opposition leader V D Satheesan termed it an “honour kidnapping” while state health minister Veena George reiterated that all procedures were in place while the baby was given for adoption.
