Pushpan, a renowned activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and survivor of the 1994 Koothuparamba police firing, passed away at a private hospital in Kozhikode on Saturday, September 28. 

Widely known as a ‘living martyr', Pushpan (54), a native of Kannur’s Choklihas been bedridden over the last three decades after he was shot at by the police in 1994. 

He was receiving treatment for the past two months and breathed his last at the Baby Memorial Hospital around 3.30 pm. According to reports, He was admitted to the Baby Memorial hospital in a critical condition on August 2, and later shifted to a ventilator following a heart attack. 

Pushpan was injured and bedridden following the police firing which happened in November 1994 at Koothuparamba in Kannur district of Kerala. Pushpan was part of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing linked to the CPI(M), which had staged a protest against the educational policy of the then Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF) government. 

The incident took place during the inauguration of the cooperative urban Bank by MV Raghavan, who was the minister for cooperation and ports. MV Raghavan, also known as MRV, had been a hardcore leader of CPI(M), who later parted ways with the party. 

The incident took the lives of five youths, who all are party workers. The 24-year-old Pushpan survived the firing, however, a bullet hit his spinal cord during the firing which led to him being paralysed.

Pushpan has been a part of the Left movement in Kerala ever since his school days, when he was a member of the Balasangham (CPM's children's wing) and later in the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of CPI(M). 

Expressing condolences, the Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, Pushpan was an answer to the question of what communism is. “His life made us understand the greatness of a revolutionary. He was an immortal symbol of sacrifice and humanity. The loss of a comrade has created a personal sorrow for me. I share the pain of the comrades and the family,” he said.