Legislator sparks row after forcibly securing release of detainee in elephant death case

Konni legislator and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader K.U. Janeesh Kumar has stirred controversy after a video showing him forcibly securing the release of a man from a forest station surfaced in the public domain.

The video, now widely circulating on social media, captures the legislator confronting officers at the Padam Forest Station. The incident, which took place the other day, unfolded in the presence of the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DYSP), Konni.

In the footage, Mr. Janeesh Kumar accuses the forest officials of attempting to frame innocent individuals by detaining them without following proper legal procedures. He is seen angrily shouting at the officials, threatening that “the office could be burned down” and warning, “Naxalites will come next.”

‘False charges’

“Are you arresting innocent people on false charges? Don’t act so high-handedly. Are you even human? Was he taken into custody in accordance with the law?” the MLA asked as he confronted the forest officials.

The person, a migrant worker, had been summoned to the forest station for an interrogation in connection with the death of a 10-year-old wild elephant on a pineapple farm near Kulathumon last week. Forest officials suspect that routing electricity at dangerously high voltages through the solar fencing on the farm’s periphery led to the animal’s electrocution.

Commenting on the issue, the legislator explained in a statement on Wednesday that he intervened after it became apparent that some forest officials, under the guise of investigating the elephant’s death, attempted to create a climate of fear in the region.

Wildlife menace

“I had arrived at the location to participate in a public protest over the growing wildlife menace. It was then that the pregnant wife of the migrant worker called to inform me that her husband had been taken into custody by forest officials in connection with the elephant’s death. So I immediately contacted a senior forest official,” said the MLA.

According to him, the local residents complained that as many as 11 people had been detained just the previous day in connection with the elephant’s death. “After learning about the situation, I visited the Padam Forest Office with senior police officers and it soon became clear that the young migrant worker had been wrongfully detained,” he added.

The MLA criticised the forest officials for not following the due procedures in summoning people for interrogation, while also reiterating that he would stand by the people.

A probe is currently under way into the incident.