Railways erases historical painting

Malappuram: The railways erased the painting of a historic event at Tirur station on Monday after a group of people belonging to Sangh Parivar raised objections.

The painting depicting the wagon tragedy of 1921 was done on the wall on the station premises on Sunday as part of the ongoing beautification programme.

The Tirur constituency committee of the BJP had filed a complaint with the railways’ Palakkad division seeking the removal of the painting.

The public relations manager of the Palakkad division, M.K. Gopinath, said that the painting was erased as it did not go down well with the theme of the beautification initiative. The rail division had chosen Tirur, Kannur and Palakkad stations for beautification with paintings of art, culture and historical events.

The local railway officials had chosen the wagon tragedy and Thunchath Ezhuthachan’s legacy as the themes for painting at Tirur station. Both the themes fall under the category of culture and historic events.

Tirur and Podanur were the two stations directly linked to the wagon tragedy, which was part of the history of India’s freedom movement against the British Raj. About 100 Mopila rebels arrested from different parts of Malappuram were herded into a windowless goods wagon and transported from Tirur to Coimbatore. As many as 70 of them died of suffocation by the time the goods wagon reached Podanur. This was the darkest event during the Malabar rebellion.