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A 27-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker was hacked to death in front of his aged parents in Kannur district in poll-bound Kerala, triggering a blame game on Tuesday between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
While the BJP slammed CPI-M for Monday night’s murder of RSS worker, Sujit, the Marxist party has denied it, saying it was the fallout of a local incident relating to insulting a girl.
Police said 10 CPI-M sympathisers have been taken into custody and they are being questioned.
Sujit succumbed to the injuries before reaching hospital late Monday night.
His aged parents and brother tried to stop the assailants, who stormed into their house at Papinesseri around 11.30 pm on Monday, and suffered injuries in the process.
They have also been hospitalised.
BJP’s Kannur District President Satyaprakash told reporters that CPI-M was allegedly behind the attack.
He alleged that CPI-M had decided to whip up violence to get over the embarrassment of the arrest of its party district secretary, P Jayarajan, an accused in the murder of a BJP functionary in 2014, after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected in the case.
BJP is observing ‘hartal’ in Kannur, Papinesseri and Azhikode areas to protest against the killing.
CPI-M state secretary Kodieryi Balakrishnan said the attack was not political and was a purely local issue and had nothing to do with the CPI-M.
BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan, however, said the attack cannot be considered an ‘isolated’ incident.
“In Kannur, the attacks on BJP and RSS are a continuing affair. This is not an isolated incident,” he said.
CPI-M MP, M B Rajesh, said, “This is not an incident of political violence and CPI-M has nothing to do with it.”
“BJP and RSS have a long list of political violence. According to our information yesterday’s incident is not at all political violence,” he added.
The incident comes after a political calm in Kannur, which frequently witnesses violent clashes between CPI-M and BJP.
On December 1, 1999, K P Jayakrishnan Master, a BJP leader was hacked to death, allegedly by CPI-M workers, in front of his students while he was taking class.
Image: Sujit succumbed to the injuries before reaching hospital late Monday night.