UDF government orders re-investigation into KSU black flag protest against Veena George

The Kerala Government has ordered a re-investigation into the black flag protest by the Kerala Students Union (KSU) activists against former Health Minister and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader Veena George at Kannur railway station during the fag end of the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in February. 

Also read | Plea before Kerala HC by KSU worker accused of attacking former Health Minister Veena George withdrawn

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala’s office said the decision was predicated on a petition filed by KSU activists arrested on allegedly trumped-up charges of attempted murder and armed assault in connection with the incident and subsequently remanded in judicial custody. 

Mr. Chennithala’s office said the government was contemplating either forming a Special Investigation Team headed by a Superintendent of Police or referring the case to the State Police Crime Branch. 

The protest against Ms. George had precipitated a politically fraught situation, resulting in clashes between CPI(M) and Congress workers in several districts in the State. 

Ms. George, who had arrived at the railway station under heavy police escort, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Kannur District Hospital, reportedly with soft tissue injuries to her neck and hand. 

The CPI(M) and Congress offered conflicting views of the incident, which was recorded on camera by television news crews. The CPI(M) called for State-wide protests, accusing KSU activists of being complicit in an entrenched political conspiracy hatched by the Congress to harm Ms. George, with a view to precipitating a law-and-order situation in Kerala in the run-up to the 2026 Assembly elections. 

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan spotlighted the issue and sought to put the Congress, then in the Opposition, on the defensive by visiting Ms. George in the hospital’s ICU. CPI(M) State Secretary M.V. Govindan and his Communist Party of India (CPI) counterpart, Binoy Viswam, termed the “mob violence” against Ms George as premeditated and orchestrated by the Congress leadership. 

In contrast, the then Leader of the Opposition in Kerala and current Chief Minister, V D Satheesan, termed the incident CPI (M)-sponsored political theatre to divert public attention and alter the arc of the political narrative away from other controversies plaguing the LDF government, including the dismal state of public health delivery in Kerala. 

He alleged that Ms. George, supposedly at the behest of the CPI(M) leadership, had sought to create a political spectacle by getting herself admitted to the ICU to put the United Democratic Front (UDF) opposition in an indefensible position ahead of the declaration of the Assembly polls. Mr Satheesan had also argued that the police cordon had prevented KSU workers from getting close to Ms George and the State had slapped grievous charges on the students out of political spite. 

Earlier, the KSU had moved the High Court, stating that they were victims of the LDF government’s high-handedness and that the charges against them were demonstrably false, if television news footage of the event was anything to go by.