Case filed against 20 people including CPM area secretary for assaulting police during Bharat Bandh; widespread violence reported in Kerala

MALAPPURAM: Police case against CPM area secretary who assaulted police during Bharat Bandh. The incident took place in Malappuram Manjeri. Police have registered a case against 20 people including CPM Manjeri area secretary Feroz Babu. The case is for threatening police officers and obstructing official duties.

The strike was announced by opposition trade unions and service organisations in protest against the anti-worker policies of the central government. The strike will continue till midnight today. The central trade unions, except for BMS, have jointly called for a national strike. Workers, central and state government employees, teachers, motor vehicle workers, traders, and those in the banking and insurance sectors are participating in the strike.

Violence was reported in many places in connection with the Bharat Bandh. A centre that supplies medicines to hospitals was also closed down by protestors. There are also complaints that people, including KSRTC employees, were attacked. The Aushadhi subcenter in Pathanapuram, which supplies medicines to hospitals, was closed down by protestors.

The protesters who reached the fish market in Mukkam, Kozhikode threatened to pour kerosene on the fish if the shop was not closed. The threat was made by a top CITU leader while the police were watching. The tires of the vehicles of the teachers who had come to work at Nedungome GHSS in Sreekandapuram Municipality in Kannur were deflated.

A female teacher at Kasaragod Vellarikkundu Parappa government higher secondary school was locked up by protest supporters. KSRTC employees were also beaten up by protest supporters in Kattakada in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam. Shibu, a conductor at the Neyyattinkara depot, was beaten up in Kattakada. Protest supporters entered the bus in Kollam and verbally abused and slapped the conductor. A government employee who had come to work on the strike was beaten up by a group of CPM workers. Vishnu Radhakrishnan, a native of Vadakkekkara in Adimali, was injured in the attack by CPM goons.