Padmaja

Thiruvananthapuram, April 27: Dead men tell no tales. But an engineering student who died in police custody during Emergency has come back to haunt Kerala’s K family. And for resurrecting the ghost, K. Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal has only herself to blame.

P. Rajan, a student of Regional Engineering College, Kozhikode, had gone missing after he was picked up by police for acting in a play caricaturing Emergency misrule. Rajan’s disappearance and his father Eachara Warrier’s legal battle to trace the killers have since been known as the Rajan case.

Now, more than a quarter century later, Padmaja’s comments on a TV talk show — branding Rajan a Naxalite and saying Warrier’s sufferings stemmed from his son’s militant activities — may rebound on her.

“Karunakaran’s children have not killed anyone,” she had retorted when a member of the audience asked her about the Rajan episode.

Warrier, who lives in Thrissur, pleaded that his son was never a Naxalite. Congress leaders have been making this allegation, “but I am yet to discover any proof of his Naxalite involvement”, he said.

Tenacious in his pursuit of justice, Warrier has entrusted the lawyer, who had been fighting the Rajan case, to file a defamation suit against Padmaja.

The case, which went on for years, had cost Karunakaran his chair. He had to lay down office within a month of taking over as chief minister after the Emergency following court strictures.

M.K. Sanu, who had taught Rajan, said he has never been a Naxalite. He was a diligent student inclined towards art and literature.

Former additional chief secretary D. Babu Paul said it was foolish to expect much of Padmaja, who got a Lok Sabha ticket only because she is Karunakaran’s daughter.

The mud raked up by Padmaja’s comment may spill over to Wadakkancherry, where her brother K. Muraleedharan is contesting in the Assembly byelection.

Karunakaran has already rubbed voters the wrong way by putting up his children as candidates. There are also murmurs of dissent from party workers once close to the leader, who are unhappy with progeny politics.

Muraleedharan, who has faced several elections and been an MP for three terms, has been very guarded in his speeches. But his sister’s political naivete may cost them dear.