Varghese
Varghese was known as the Che Guevara of Kerala.A revolutionary figure who put his signature on the bloodiest chapter of the Naxalite movement in Kerala.In the late sixties, Varghese led his band of followers on a killing spree that invoked the Naxalite theory of annihilation of class enemies. Varghese started out as a CPI-M leader, working among the adivasis (tribal people) of his native Wayanad district. The Naxalbari uprising swept him into its wake and he soon emerged as the leader of a group of idealistic young men and women pledged to the armed overthrow of the State. They attacked police stations and killed ruthless landlords.Following the murder of landlord Vasudeva Adiga and a suspected police informer Chekkoo at Thrissileri in Wayanad in 1970, and the subsequent police crackdown, Varghese and his comrades retreated into the Thirunelli forests. Central Reserve Police Force personnel eventually tracked him down in a safe house for Naxalites run by an old widow. On February 18, 1970, the State struck back. Varghese was captured and killed by the police in a Latin-American style execution in the jungles of Wayanad in north Kerala. Raising questions of accountability over the extra-judicial execution of a prisoner in police custody. The policeman who pulled the trigger 34 years ago has lit the fuse to a controversy a few years back revolving around repression and human rights violations perpetrated by the State. Traumatised by guilt, constable P Ramachandran Nair penned a confessional note shortly after he shot Varghese. The letter was handed over to the slain Naxalite leader's compatriot, A Vasu. Nair recounts the encounter: Varghese was sitting between two rocks. He was calm but alert, as though he was waiting for something to happen and wondering why it wasn't happening. I went up to him and rested the nozzle of my rifle on the left side on his chest.'Long live the revolution,' he shouted and I pulled the trigger. He fell over. Constable Nair's letter represents possibly the first known case of a subordinate functionary going on record with an admission of a custodial killing carried out on the orders of a superior officer Today Varghese's comrades-in-arms have served time in prisons and come out chastened. Vasu is an active trade union leader. Ajitha is a crusader for women's rights and Philip M Prasad is an advocate and a devotee of Satya Sai Baba. The torchbearers of the Naxalite movement, who believed that class enemies did not have the right to live, have found their respective slots in bourgeois society.
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