Human rights activist Ayinoor Vasu, widely recognized as Grow Vasu, has been acquitted by a local court on Wednesday, marking a significant development in a case that drew attention to alleged extra-judicial police killings in 2016. Vasu, at the age of 93, had been arrested for his vocal protests and slogans against the reported police shooting of two Maoists, Devarajan and Ajitha, near the mortuary of the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital.
The verdict was delivered by the Kunnamangalam First Class Magistrate Court after Grow Vasu had spent the past one-and-a-half months behind bars. The charges brought against him included unlawful assembly and obstructing police in the discharge of their duty.
The incident that led to Vasu’s arrest unfolded on November 24, 2016, when Kerala police reportedly killed Koppam Devarajan, a central committee member of CPI (Maoist), and Ajitha alias Kaveri in Padukka forest, located in the Karulai range of the Nilambur South division. When the bodies were transferred to Kozhikode Medical College, a group of activists, including Vasu, organized protests, accusing the police of orchestrating the encounter.
Vasu had been relentless in his demand for a judicial inquiry into the killings, stating, “We don’t know what happened. The forest area, located 15 km from Padukka forest station, had been cordoned off, and even reporters were not allowed to go there,” during an interview with Manorama News in front of the mortuary at the time.
Grow Vasu’s history of activism traces back to the 1960s when he was part of the Naxalite movement. He faced a seven-year imprisonment in Kannur Central Prison after his arrest in the Thirunelli Naxalite action of 1970, during which Naxal leader Arikkad Varghese was killed.
In the 1980s, Vasu joined forces with the Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers (GROW) to advocate for the closure of the Gwalior Rayons factory at Mavoor, citing pollution concerns in the Chaliyar river. It was during this time that he earned the moniker “Grow Vasu.”
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