Unfazed by mounting political pressure, the police squad probing the attack on security guards at the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital (MCH) has intensified its search for two more suspects who have been at large for over two weeks.
“They are here in Kozhikode enjoying the protection of fellow political workers. We will not let them get off scot-free as the charges against them are serious,” said a senior police officer associated with the probe. He also clarified that no innocent persons were booked as alleged by a section of political leaders.
The investigation team that recently secured the custody of five persons, who were previously remanded in the case, revealed that none of them had cooperated with evidence gathering procedures.
Meanwhile, the functionaries of an ex-servicemen’s organisation who came in support of the injured guards alleged that the two suspected CPI(M) workers were being guarded by the party in the name of some charity work they had done on the medical college campus. “Protecting criminals in the name of charity work is meant to justify cruelty and deny justice to the victims,” they claimed.
CPI(M) functionaries dismissed the claims of the police by saying that the party was only against the targeted attack on innocent persons, including women, in the name of the probe. They also claimed that the five other suspects in the case would not have surrendered before the police if the party had offered them protection.
It was on August 31 that three security personnel and a journalist were assaulted by the gang at the MCH entrance. The guards were allegedly beaten up as they declined to facilitate the entry of a DYFI leader and his wife to the hospital without visitor’s pass. The gang allegedly attacked the journalist when he tried to capture the incident on his mobile camera.
