Winter of discontent: In Kerala’s Kannur, fabricating crude bombs thrives this time of the year

Come November, the police in Kannur become wary. They know from previous experience that winter in this North Kerala district – ground zero of a decades-long rivalry between the Sangh Parivar and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – will see a surge in crude bomb blasts.

The rise in violence is a result of the fact that the death anniversaries of many members of both organisations killed in the political violence fall during the four months from November. Both organisations conduct commemoration ceremonies for their slain comrades during these months – and sometimes, attempts are made to avenge their deaths, police officials say.

A preferred way of exacting revenge, the police say, is to target their rivals with crude bombs. But all-too-often, the devices go off even as they are being assembled.

This season, blasts have already been reported from Koothuparamba, a town around 25 km east of the district headquarters. The first explosion occurred at a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh office on November 7. The RSS attempted to blame communist party workers for the incident and organised a march in protest. But the police exposed the shallowness of the RSS by seizing two country bombs from their office.

On November 9, an explosion nearby destroyed a building owned by a Bharatiya Janata Party worker named Valayangadan Raghu. The police seized a huge quantity of gunpowder from the house. “We haven’t arrested anyone in connection with the blast,” said Koothuparamba Circle Inspector U Preman. “The probe is on but we have got conclusive evidence to prove the explosion occurred while bombs were being made inside the building.”

The BJP denied the police’s claims that its members were involved in making bombs. The party’s district president K Sathya Prakash alleged that the police were acting on orders of the ruling party’s leaders. “CPI(M) workers attacked our office,” Prakash said. “The police conducted the raid only to spread the false story of bomb seizure.”

Sounding alarm

Most often, the crude bombs are made by packing explosive chemicals such as ammonium nitrate and sulphur into glass bottles or coconut shells, together with shrapnel like ball bearings. The bombs are made in sheds or abandoned buildings and then hidden away in vacant plots.

“Availability of vast stretches of unused land in the eastern parts of Kannur district is a blessing for the bomb makers,” said T Sasidharan, the author of Radical Politics in Kannur, a book that explores the political violence in the district. “These areas also have plenty of abandoned buildings.”

According to police data, at least 69 political activists were killed in Kannur from 2000 to 2016. Of them, 31 belonged to the Sangh Parivar and 30 to the CPI(M).

The communist party claims 66 of its workers from the district have been murdered by Sangh Parivar activists in the last 45 years, starting with UK Kunhiraman on January 4, 1972.

On the other hand, the BJP claims 85 of its members have been killed by the CPI(M)’s supporters in the last 48 years. Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, a Jan Sangh worker murdered on April 28, 1969, was its first balidani, or martyr.

This year, Kannur has been relatively peaceful since the murder of an RSS worker, Biju, in May. Preman put it down to the police’s efforts. “The number of explosions has come down because of our raids,” he said. “We have intensified raids since November first week.”

But the twin blasts and seizure of explosives in Koothuparamba has caused alarm. “The explosions indicate that bomb-making still thrives in the district,” said Nishit, sub-inspector of police at Koothuparamba, who led the raids at the RSS office. “Tension may escalate in the coming days. We are keeping a close watch on the developments.”

Tension already prevails, in fact. On November 13, a clash in Panur, a town 10 km south of Koothuparamba, left two workers of the CPI(M) and one of the RSS with stab injuries.

Blame game

Prakash denied that Sangh Parivar activists were involved in making bombs. “We are neither involved nor do we support bomb makers,” he said. Reminded that a BJP worker named Deeshith was killed making bombs in Kottayampoyil, Koothuparamba, in 2016, Prakash said, “Some workers might be making bombs to defend against CPI(M) attackers.”

Communist party leader OK Vasu claimed that eight BJP workers have been killed making bombs in Kannur so far. “The BJP has included them in the list of balidanis,” he claimed. “The party is sacrificing the lives of young workers. It is high time they stopped making bombs.”

He seemed to suggest that workers of his party are only acting in self-defence. “BJP continues to make bombs to scuttle peace in Kannur,” replied Vasu, who headed the BJP in the district until 2014 before joining the CPI(M). “They should stop the practice first.”

The last CPI(M) workers reported killed by their own bombs were Shyju and Subeesh, in July 2015. They died in a blast while moving a cache of explosives at Kolavallur village. Vasu said it was a “one-off incident”.

Another CPI(M) leader, Koothuparamba block panchayat president A Ashokan, claimed his party does not have “bomb making centres”. But the BJP, he alleged, is aggressively making bombs after its “failed Janraksha Yatra”, a campaign undertaken in October by senior party leaders such as president Amit Shah to rally its base. Ashokan was the BJP’s Kannur general secretary before joining the communist party in 2014.

“In the 1980s, only a selected few could make crude bombs,” Ashokan claimed. “BJP had bomb-making experts like Guruvayoorappan Chandran, who was killed in 1985 while making bombs. It was a highly centralised operation at that time. Bombs would be manufactured in secret places and then taken to other locations. Everything was handled by experts then. Hence casualties were low.”

Now, he rued, bomb-making is a cottage industry. “Even teens try their hand at making bombs,” he said. “It has increased chances of accidents.”