Kerala CM attempts to downplay Dalit sisters' arrest

Amid a raging row over registering of a case against two Dalit sisters and sending them to jail for allegedly attacking a CPM activist in Kannur, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today said there was no need to react to the issue.

 

The one-and-half-year-old daughter of one of the Dalit women was not sent to jail by anybody but the baby was taken to the prison by her mother, he said.

 

"There is case and counter-case in the issue. What is there to react in such a matter? Is it a child going to jail for the first time (in the state)? There were many Tribal children who went to jail before," Vijayan told reporters at the airport here after arriving from Delhi where he attended CPM Central Committee meeting.

 

"Here, the child was not sent to jail (by anybody), but the child was taken to the prison by the mother," Vijayan said when reporters sought his reaction over the issue.

 

He had courted controversy earlier also over the issue when he said that he had nothing to say on the matter when journalists asked for his reaction in New Delhi yesterday.

 

The recent arrest of two Dalit sisters Akhila (30) and Anjana (25), daughters of a local Congress leader in Thalassery in Kannur, kicked up a row in the state with Congress and BJP attacking the LDF government over the issue.

 

They were slapped with non-bailable charges on a complaint by CPM that the women had barged into the party office in Thalassery and attacked one of their activists recently.

 

However, the siblings said they did not attack anybody but only questioned the Left activist who abused them by calling their caste name.

 

After being released by a court on bail, Anjana had attempted suicide at her home allegedly due to the mental strain over the developments.

 

She was admitted to a nearby hospital and her condition is stable now.