Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 23 (IANS): In a bizarre act of 'high handedness', the Kerala Police on Saturday fired tear gas shells and water canons when the leaders were addressing a protest march led by State Congress President K. Sudhakaran and other top party leaders, here.

The incident occurred before the state police headquarters when the Congress party workers were protesting against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is also the Home Minister, for giving a 'free hand' to the police and the CPI-M party cadres for attacking the Congress.

Sudhakaran, who has been hospitalised following discomfort in breathing after the police fired tear gas, said such an act has not happened before.

“I had finished speaking to the protesters and the Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan had just started to speak. Suddenly tear gas shells and also water cannons were fired. Many of us were caught unawares and many of us suffered breathing issues,” said Sudhakaran.

Satheesan said such acts have never before taken place on leaders.

“The reigns of the police have been taken by a group in the office of Vijayan and it's they who are directing the police to do this criminal act. The state police chief is sidelined and it’s this group that runs the police, hence this dastardly act took place,” said Satheesan.

Shashi Tharoor, the local Congress MP of the state capital city, said 18 tear gas shells were fired.

“This was an extreme step taken by the police as generally when the leaders speak at protest marches, there will be no action. Everything was going peacefully when this act by the police took place. I spoke to the state police chief and he said he is not aware of this and will find out. I will be filing a breach of privilege notice before the Lok Sabha speaker on what happened and the legislators also will be doing the same,” said Tharoor.

Legislators Chandy Oommen, Anwar Sadath and Rajya Sabha member Jeby Mether and several other leaders have also been admitted to the hospitals.

Senior Congress Lok Sabha member K. Muraleedharan said this is 'brazen act' by the police who would have got the signal from Vijayan to rough us up.

“The statewide yatra led by Vijayan and accompanied by his entire cabinet which is ending later in the day here has turned out to be a damp squib and to vent his anger about it, this was a pre-planned attack on us,” said Muraleedharan.

Meanwhile, the top leadership of the Congress has now decided to organise a statewide protest later in the evening against the attack by the police.