Kochi, Sunday, January 31, 2010: CPI leader and Rajya Sabha member K E Ismail today denied that he had said that if anybody came to demolish his party office he would have his hands cut off.

“I did not say that the hands would be cut off. What I said was that those coming to pull down our office would have to face stiff resistance from party workers”, Ismail said in Kochi when asked about media reports of him having made such a statement in Munnar regarding state government’s anti-eviction drive.

“If somebody comes to dismantle your home, you will react. That is the spirit of what I had said”, he said.

Ismail reportedly made the statement while addressing a teachers’ union meeting at Mannarkad in Palakkad yesterday. He was alluding to allegations from Congress-led UDF that the CPI and CPM offices in Munnar stood on encroached land.