The spate of political murders taking place in Kerala in the recent times is a real wake-up call for the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government to get its act together to rein in the political violence in the State.
Two political murders occurred in a span of six hours in Alappuzha on Sunday — that of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) State secretary K.S. Shan and BJP OBC Morcha State secretary Ranjith Sreenivas. If Shan was attacked by a car-borne killer-gang on the road near his house at Mannanchery, Ranjith was hacked to death by a 12-member hit squad in front of his mother and wife in the drawing room of his house.
SDPI activists at Government Medical College, Ernakulam, where the postmortem of K.S. Shan, State secretary of the party who was killed at Alappuzha on Saturday night, was held. Photo: Special Arrangement
Sequence of events
That the two incidents occurred a month after a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionary S. Sanjith was hacked to death by group in broad daylight when the victim was riding on a bike with his wife at Kinassery in Palakkad district suggests that these murders are part of a sequence of events.
Incidentally P.B. Sandeep Kumar, secretary of the Peringara Local Committee, of the CPI (M), was hacked to death near Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta last month. All these murders, though in two neighbouring districts, had also taken place in a radius of 40 km.
Sources said that intelligence reports had warned about the activities of organisations, including the intensified social media campaigns, amassing of weapons, financial dealings, clandestine operations, training programmes and street corner meetings inciting communal passions.
Unlike the clashes occurring between political parties, the violent confrontation often witnessed between the Sangh Parivar outfits and the SDPI, the political wing of the Popular Front of India (PFI), across the State in recent times has acquired a communal dimension. This has now become a serious cause of concern.
