Culture of political violence started on campuses in Kerala when newly formed SFI started to challenge the monopoly of KSU in early 1970s. At least 35 students have lost lives so far and majority of them belong to SFI. Among the accused/culprits are workers of KSU, SFI, ABVP, Campus Front, PDF and Dalit Panthers Party. The first recorded murder on a campus was in 1974. Ashraf, an SFI worker and a student of Brennan College, Thalassery, was killed by KSU workers
December 1977
G Bhuvaneswaran, an SFI worker and a student of NSS College, Pandalam, was murdered by a group of KSU workers. Bhuvaneswaran was the elder brother of CPM leader and former minister G Sudhakaran.
December 1982
C V Jose, SFI worker and student of Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, was murdered by KSU workers soon after he won as college union general secretary.
February 1992
K R Kochanian, SFI worker from Thrissur, was killed at the venue of University Union Arts Festival.
September 1996
ABVP activists Anu P S, Sujith and Kim Karunakaran who were students of DB College, Parumala, were attacked by SFI activists, prompting them to jump into the Pampa river. They drowned as the mob threw stones at them
March 2012
Aneesh Rajan who was Idukki district vice-president of SFI, was murdered by INTUC activists.
July 2018
In July 2018, Abhimanyu, SFI worker and a second-year BSc student of Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, was murdered by Campus Front and Popular Front of India workers.
Clashes between groups of students happen regularly on campuses. As per the Crime in India 2018 report, 214 incidents of political clashes were recorded on campuses in the state. Late CPM leader Simon Britto
who had been wheelchair bound after being seriously injured in a clash between SFI and KSU workers of
Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, in 1983 had been a living martyr of campus violence in the state.