Saffron outfits protest ABVP leader’s murder in Kannur
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM The ruling Left is supporting fundamentalist outfits in a big way. The latest murder clearly shows that both are hand in glove. KUMMANAM RAJASEKHARAN, Kerala BJP president
: Saffron outfits observed a shutdown in north Kerala’s Kannur on Saturday to protest against the alleged political killing of an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leader a day earlier.
On Friday night, 24-year-old Symaprasad, a member of the RSS’ student wing, was hacked to death in the district notorious for clashes between members of Left and right-wing organisations.
Police arrested four men in connection with the murder and said all the accused belonged to the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political arm of the fundamentalist outfit Popular Front of India. Police said Shyamprasad’s killing appeared to be in retaliation to an SDPI worker sustaining injuries in a clash between the group’s and RSS’ workers a few days back.
“The accused were arrested along the Kerala-Karnataka borshows der. They told us it was a retaliatory attack,” said investigating officer K Kuttikrishnan. Police have tightened the security in the district following the murder.
BJP ATTACKS LEFT
The BJP was quick to mount an attack on Kerala’s ruling Left government, accusing it of prompting extremist outfits to attack workers affiliated with saffron organisations .
“The ruling Left is supporting fundamentalist outfits in a big way. The latest murder clearly that both are hand in glove. They [CPI(M)] prompts such forces to take on RSS, BJP leaders and police are also helping them,” state BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan said and added that his party would press for a ban on the Popular Front and SDPI. The SDPI is yet to react to the developments.
Kannur has been a hotbed of red-saffron clashes with more 200 people belonging to both the camps being killed in the threedecade-long political violence in the district. The root of the conflict can be traced to early sixties when the RSS, with the support of the Konkan business lobby, started making inroads into the CPI(M) bastion, which political observers say is for the Left what Nagpur is for the RSS.
The BJP has made Kannur violence a national issue with its senior leaders, including party chief Amit Shah and finance minister Arun Jaitley, visiting the district and calling for action against the ruling Left regime.