Kerala: Bodies of two Maoists handed over to relatives

Thrissur: Police released the bodies of Manivasagam and Karthik, two of the four alleged Maoists who were killed at Attapadi recently, to their relatives on Wednesday. The relatives had come to Thrissur Medical College hospital where the bodies were being kept after postmortem.

The body of Manivasagam was taken by his relatives to his home village in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district.

The relatives of Karthik were planning to cremate his body in Thrissur itself as they said it was difficult for them to take it to their home village at Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu. However, Kerala police informed them that they could not cremate the body here.

Subsequently, human rights activists and relatives approached the district collector with a request to permit the cremation of Karthik’s body at Laloor crematorium near the city. However, the collector also rejected the request citing a police report suggesting that this could lead to security issues.

The body was then taken to Coimbatore in the evening, according to Murukeshan, the brother of Karthik. He disclosed that the Tamil Nadu police have assured that they would make arrangements to cremate the body at Coimbatore, on Wednesday night itself.

Kerala police officers accompanied the body till the state border and the Tamil Nadu police took charge from there, it is learnt. The rights activists paid their last respects to the slain activists when the bodies were taken out of the mortuary, and shouted slogans against the state government for “slaughtering revolutionaries”.

The bodies of the two other alleged Maoists are still being kept at the medical college hospital mortuary.