Six CPM activists held on murder charge

Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) suffered a setback yesterday, with the state police registering the arrest of six of the party’s workers in connection with the murder of a Bharatiya Janata Party worker last week.

Senior CPM leaders including the party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and veteran leader P. Jayarajan had been maintaining that the party had no connection with the murder of BJP worker E. Santosh Kumar, 53, at Dharmadom in Kannur district last week.

The murder had stoked emotions and the state schools’ youth festival that is currently under way in Kannur was also briefly affected when BJP workers decided to carry the body of Santosh Kumar on its final journey along the route of the youth festival venue.

The six assailants had forcibly entered Santosh Kumar’s house on Wednesday night and hacked him. Kumar died while being moved to hospital.

Prior enemity

According to police, the murder is believed to have been triggered by an earlier altercation between members of the Students Federation of India, the students’ wing of the CPM, and the volunteers of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the BJP’s student wing.

CPM leaders have maintained that the murder was not part of any political vendetta. Senior CPM leader M.V. Jayarajan said the murder was related to differences of opinion within Santosh Kumar’s family and that it was wrong to politicise the incident.

BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan demanded a thorough probe into the incident. The BJP held a strike in Kannur district on Thursday to protest the murder. Santosh Kumar was the party’s Andaloor booth president. BJP state general secretary K. Surendran alleged that the CPM was behaving like a terror outfit.