CPI (Maoist) claim onus for attack on NGIL corporate office in Kochi

The CPI (Maoist) on Friday took responsibility for the attack on the corporate office of Nitta Gelatin India Limited (NGIL) in Kochi on last Monday.

A press note released by the Western Ghat Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist) in Thrissur said the urban action team under the committee carried out the attack.

Going by the claim of the Maoists, the attack on NGIL corporate office, located in the prime spot in Kochi, would be the organisation’s first sortie into a Kerala city.

NGIL’s unit in Thrissur district, which manufactures ossein from animal bone, has been facing protests over polluting a nearby river. A nine-member gang, wearing masks, stormed into the corporate office after threatening the security staff. Using iron rods, they demolished the computers and window panes. They also left a letter, which has reference to Maoists, forcing the police to suspect the involvement of the ultra outfit.

The press release in Thrissur said the attack on NGIL was a symbolic action and was a warning to the company to withdraw from its anti-people stand. If the company does not take a cue from this action, the coming actions would not be just symbolic.

It said past experience showed the irrelevance of nonviolence means of agitation. Police had brutally tortured the people who had been engaged in a peaceful agitation. The atrocities committed by the company towards the local people in terms of exploitation, pollution and social loss is thousand fold than the loss created by our attack on the NGIL office.

The release called for a people’s fight to gain supremacy over water and forest.

NGIL, an Indo-Japanese venture, is a leading manufacturer of gelatin, ossein, di-calcium phosphate, collagen peptide and related products which have wide applications in pharmaceuticals. The NGIL’s unit in Thrissur was attacked last year in connection with the agitation against polluting river Chalakkudy.

In the last two years, there had been unconfirmed reports about the presence of Maoists in the hilly regions of North Kerala, bordering Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Despite massive mobilization of the forces and combing operations in the region, nothing has been yielded yet.

In July this year, a prominent Maoist leader Sinoj was killed while making bombs in an undisclosed forest region.

Source indianexpress.com