Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 14 (IANS): The Congress on Tuesday strongly condemned registration of case against its three workers under sections of attempt to murder charges for raising slogans against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on board a domestic flight from Kannur to here.
Reacting to the Monday evening incident, veteran Congress legislator and former Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said these charges should be put on Left Democratic Front convenor E.P.Jayarajan, as it was he who had attacked the Congress workers on board the aircraft.
"Appropriate charges should be been levelled the Congress workers if they had done any wrong, but it was Jayarajan who attacked them and hence, he should be booked under charges of attempt to murder," he demanded.
As per a video going viral, after the aircraft landed, two Congress workers were seen shouting slogans against Vijayan and Jayarajan shoving down them.
Later, Jayarajan first told the media that the sloganeering had taken place after Vijayan alighted from the aircraft and the Congress workers were totally drunk.
As the news spread, angry CPI-M workers attacked the state Congress headquarters here at a time when veteran Congress leader A.K.Antony was present in the office.
Several Congress party offices also came under attack in the state.
On Tuesday, Congress Lok Sabha member K.Muralaeedhran said gone are the days when the Congress workers used to be silent when they were being attacked by the political opponents.
"We are no longer the party which was guided by the policy of non-violence of Gandhiji. We will warn those who attack us for no reason to beware of this," said an angry Muraleedharan.
Even though there were three Congress workers who were involved, one of them managed to slip out after the incident of sloganeering, while the other two are now in police custody and even though the Congress leaders demanded that medical tests should be done on them to see if they were drunk.
But the police allegedly failed to do so and later it was said the doctors felt that there was no need for it.
Meanwhile, the Indigo airline officials have by now started their internal probe and informed the Director General Civil Aviation of the incident.