Kannur violence -- All-party meet fails to find concrete solution

Kannur violence -- All-party meet fails to find concrete solution
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

Kannur, Dec 6: The all-party peace conference convened by Chief Minister E K Nayanar to bail out the strife-torn Kannur district from the mindless recurrence of political violence ended up at the Collectorate here with a fervent appeal to all concerned to discard rancour and co-operate with all efforts to restore peace.

The meeting in which almost all the representatives of 18 political parties including that of the BJP and RSS participated, had no concrete proposals to prevent the recurrence of violence, except reactivating the existing district-level peace committee of political parties. It was decided that these committees should hold periodic meetings to sort out all contentious issues between parties.

The disputes which could not be settled at these meetings would be looked into by the Government.

Despite conflicting views aired by the leaders of the BJP-RSS and the Opposition leaders and the CPM on the role of the police, virtually everyone offered to strive for bringing about peace in thedistrict.

Amid tight security, the meeting began with the Chief Minister reading out from a written text, which was virtually a plea for the sincere co-operation of all those present at the conference for restoring peace.

While admitting that the series of violent incidents rocking the district now were the result of political vendetta and revengeful feelings nurtured by some people, the Chief Minister said that there was no meaning in blaming each other, adding that the immediate need of the hour was to restore peace.

Instead of trying to find out the reasons for the continuing spate of violence, every one should co-operate with the peace efforts, he said and invited the representative of the BJP to address the meeting.