KOCHI: A tussle between the children of the late CPM M M Lawrence emerged on Monday after his daughter Asha Lawrence approached the Kerala High Court challenging the decision of her brother M L Sajeevan and the CPM to donate her father’s body to the Government Medical College, Kalamassery, without conducting burial rites as per the Christian traditions.

Hearing the petition, Justice V G Arun directed the principal of Government Medical College, Kalamassery, to take a decision in this regard after considering the objection raised by Asha Lawrence.

The State government informed the court that Lawrence’s body will be preserved for sometime at the Medical College after taking it over. Hence, no further orders are required regarding the manner in which the body is to be kept.

Meanwhile, dramatic scenes unfolded at Ernakulam Town Hall where the mortal remains of Lawrence was kept, with Asha and her son barging into the hall raising slogans against CPM.

They were forcefully moved from the Town Hall by the police and the body was later shifted to the mortuary of the Government Medical College, Kalamassery.

In her petition, she pointed out that her siblings Sajeevan and Sujatha Boban had informed the media of their decision to hand over the body to the medical college. According to Asha, this decision was made unilaterally by her siblings and CPM’s Ernakulam District Secretary (C N Mohanan).

Asha said that though her father was a member of the CPM, he was not opposed to religion or religious beliefs. Her siblings and the CPM leadership took the decision, claiming that Lawrence had orally told Sajeevan that his wish was to hand over the body to the medical college. 

However, Asha refuted the claim, arguing that her father never expressed such a wish, either verbally or in his recently published autobiography. The CPM took this decision to keep the image that their leader was an atheist.