E-Paper
Withdraw case against ‘Grow’ Vasu over 2016 stir, Satheesan urges Kerala CM
Satheesan said that the elderly activist is being mistreated by the police at a time when murderers and those close to CPI(M) engaged in fraudulent activities are given a royal treatment in police custody
Leader of Opposition in Kerala VD Satheesan wrote to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday requesting him to direct the police to withdraw the case filed against 94-year-old human rights activist Ayinoor Vasu, popularly known as ‘Grow’ Vasu, in connection with a protest seven years ago.
Vasu was arrested and remanded in custody on July 29 by the Medical College police in Kozhikode district for a protest he led in 2016 in front of the hospital mortuary where the bodies of two alleged Maoist leaders gunned down by security forces were kept. He, and a few others, had been booked then on charges of unlawful assembly and assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of duty. This year, following his arrest, Vasu refused to pay a nominal fine or sign a self-bond for bail as a mark of his protest against the administration and has been in jail for over a month.
Amid calls from various sections of society to withdraw the charges against the nonagenarian and release him from jail, the Leader of the Opposition said that there may be people who disagree with Vasu’s ideology, but the fighting spirit within the 94-year-old has to be acknowledged.
“Vasu-ettan has a public service experience which is more than the age of many of us...I saw a photo of police officers trying to cover his mouth to prevent him from speaking. The police are forcibly pinning his hands down to prevent him from raising slogans. Officers are using their caps to hide his face. Such visuals sadden those who believe in humanity,” said Satheesan in a statement. The word ‘ettan’ means elder brother in Malayalam.
“What crime has he committed? He is not involved in terrorist, anti-national activities or murders. His crime is that he publicly protested against the killing of people in the name of engaging in Maoist activities,” the Congress leader said.
Satheesan said that the elderly activist is being mistreated by the police at a time when heinous murderers, impersonators and those close to the CPI(M) engaged in fraudulent activities are given a royal treatment in police custody and jails.
“The state government was earnest in writing off several cases like the Assembly ruckus case. What is the issue in withdrawing the case against Vasu?” he asked.
Vasu was drawn to the Left political movement in Kerala through the 40s and was an active member of the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI). But in the 50s, when he felt that the party was going in a different direction, he left it to join the Naxalite movement which was taking roots in the state. For involvement in certain Naxal operations, Vasu was arrested by the police in 1970 and he spent the next seven years in jail. After his release from jail, Vasu took to umbrella making and sale, a craft he had learned during his teenage years and which he continued to this day. Ayinoor Vasu got the ‘Grow’ tag to his name for being a part of the Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers (GROW) where he led workers to protest at the Gwalior Rayons factory in Mavoor, Kozhikode.
Malayalam novelist-poet Kalpetta Narayanan, who has known Vasu for years and spoke at a meeting last month in Kozhikode demanding his release, said, “For the last seven and a half decades, he has been engaged in public service. Ideally, he should have grown as tall as CPI(M) stalwart AK Gopalan. Vasu has always spoken in favour of the marginalised and exploited sections of society. It is extremely sad that at such an advanced age, he should be locked behind bars that too under a Left government.”
