Mohammed Riyas, who recently got married to the daughter of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has been remanded to judicial custody by the Kozhikode Chief Magistrate Court and sent to jail for two weeks.
The reason for his arrest pertains to the destruction of public property of the Kozhikode Air India office, in September 2010. Two other co-accused T V Rajesh, a Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPM) MLA from Kannur, and P P Dineshan, the then DYFI Area Secretary, have also been remanded.
In 2010, when the incident took place, Riyas was the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) district president. Dineshan the area secretary and Rajesh was the State Secretary. All the three accused have a history of violence. The DYFI is the party’s youth wing.
However, this police remand could not have come at a worse time as Rajesh, Riyas, and Dineshan had plans to contest the upcoming assembly elections in Kerala.
All three had approached the High Court for anticipatory bail but the court directed them to appear before the trial court on the 17th of February. They then appeared before the Kozhikode Magistrate who rejected their bail application and remanded them to judicial custody.
Riyas comes from a very influential family. His father PM Abdul Khader, an IPS officer, was the Commissioner of Police, Kozhikode. It must also be noted that Khader was in charge in early 2003, when the Marad massacre had taken place. Eight Hindus were killed by a Muslim mob on 2 May 2003 and a probe into the incident had concluded that the Indian Union Muslim League was directly involved in the massacre.
As of now, the Communists are planning to have Riyas contest from the relatively safe seat of Beypore, which they have been winning for the past forty years.
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.