Caught on cam: SFI activists brazenly assault cop in front of police station in Kerala

Nine persons have been booked, but no arrest has been made yet.

news Attack

A group of men charge at a policeman in the middle of the road, trying to hold his shirt collar and push him away, while another policeman tries to intervene.

The group of men can be clearly seen intimidating the cop, who has a lathi in his hand and after what seems like a heated argument, one of the men proceeds to punch the cop on his face. The policeman falls on to the road, in front of a speeding bike.

On Wednesday night, a group of 9 activists of the Students Federation of India (CPI (M) student wing) assaulted policemen right in front of the Thodupuzha police station in Idukki district.

The incident occurred at around 9 pm when the police tried to stop a clash between SFI activists and students of a rival group who had been released from custody in the night. The SFI activists had been waiting in front of the police station at that time. They were waiting for members of the rival group who had been taken into custody by the police from IHRD College Thodupuzha following a clash between the two groups, say reports.

The CCTV visuals of the attack were accessed and released by Manorama News. According to the news channel, the attack was led by SFI Idukki District Secretary. Soon after the attack, the attackers fled the scene.

Thodupuzha DySP NN Prasad told TNM that nine persons were booked in connection with the assault.

“Nine persons, eight of whom have not been identified yet, have been booked in the case. The one who has been identified is an SFI worker. His name is Sarath. We have got information that the rest of the men also belong to SFI. The police personnel were trying to separate the students when there was a clash with students of other groups. One police person was pushed down, but he hasn’t sustained any injury," the DySP said.

The nine men have been booked under Section 332 of IPC for voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty.

Sub-Inspector Vishnu Kumar told TNM that the attackers managed to flee the scene by the time rest of the policemen rushed to the road.

This is not an isolated incident of leftist groups attacking policemen. Earlier in July, a group of CPI (M) workers attacked policemen, in the process of attacking a BJP office in Thiruvananthapuram.

One of the men involved was CPI (M) counselor called IP Binu, who was seen threatening a policeman who tried to stop him. Binu had then hit the cop using a rod he had and speeding away on a bike.