THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the RSS and BJP state leaderships' denial of having engaged anyone to hold talks with the IUML leadership following the Marad carnage has left national executive member PS Sreedharan Pillai in an unenviable position in party. Sreedharan Pillai might not have imagined that his endorsement that Panakkad Mohammed Ali Shihab Thangal had taken efforts to bring peace and normalcy in Marad after the massacre there in May 2003 would land him in a tight spot.A report in a Malayalam daily's Sunday Magazine appeared last month has stirred up a hornet's nest. The report said that Panakkad Thangal had entrusted Sadiq Ali Thangal to hold talks with Sreedharan Pillai and offered all cooperation to bring normality to the strifetorn Marad beach. Sreedharan Pillai also endorsed this in the report.But the top leadership of the RSS and BJP had denied any role for Panakkad Thangal or the IUML in bringing normalcy in the area.RSS 'Prantha Kariyavah' Gopalankutty Master told Express that nobody had been entrusted by the party to hold talks with the IUML leadership as it was clear from the very outset that Muslim League leadership and its cadre were directly involved in the massacre."In fact it was the Hindu organisations and the Araya community, the victims of the carnage, which maintained restraint. The saner elements in the community exhorted peace. We advised them against retaliation. All credits go to the Araya community and Hindu organisations. Nobody else can share its credit," he said.Gopalankutty Master pointed out that the Hindu organisations and BJP were demanding a CBI probe into the massacre. But the IUML leadership, including Panakkad Thangal, was vehemently opposing it. C K Padmanabhan, national executive member of the BJP, told Express that he was the state president of the party during 2003 and Sreedharan Pillai the vicepresident. "If anyone had met him (Pillai) he should have revealed it to the party," he said. "If Thangal was ready for compromise, why did the Muslim League adamantly reject the CBI probe?" he asked.BJP state president V Muralidharan said that Sreedharan Pillai might have been made a tool in the efforts to glorify Panakkad Thangal.M Radhakrishnan, Hindu Aikya Vedi general secretary who has written an article in the latest volume of RSS mouthpiece 'Kesari' vehemently criticising Pillai for endorsing the writeup eulogising Thangal, told Express that Sreedharan Pillai's stand would help the IUML leadership to earn credit even after playing the villain's role in the Marad massacre. He also said that if Pillai had any inkling of Thangal's readiness to offer a solution for peace he should have told it to the BJP or RSS leadership.
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