THERE is a pattern to everything in Kannur. The CPM men are almost always taken to the party’s own well-guarded Thalassery Cooperative Hospital, the saffron brigade takes its casualties to the Congress-sponsored Indira Gandhi Hospital farther down. Neither side wants to risk their casualties being attacked inside a hospital.
But there is no guarantee here. Even a spouse actively supporting the opposite party is no guarantee of safety here. Praseetha, wife of Prakash Babu of Pernthattil, a BJP worker and a truck driver, is a CPM worker employed in the CPM-run Dinesh Bidi Cooperative. But on October 26, 2000, time when the local death tally of the period favoured the RSS, Babu driving a firewood truck in the wee hours was an easy target. Ten men waylaid him on the street, cut open his head, then severed his wrist and took it away. He lives on a subsistence allowance from the BJP-RSS now.
Not being an active supporter of either side may be no insurance either. The only thing 65-year-old Elancheri Kumaran, a coconut plucker of Kappummel, had to do with the CPM was voting for the party at the elections. On the night of January 13, 1997, Kumaran ran out of his bidis and walked across the road near his home to buy some. A bunch of men led by an RSS man living next door, a man he had known for years, stepped out of the shadows and threw a bomb. It took away one of his legs below the knee. Infection set in soon after, and the doctors amputated much of his remaining leg.

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