Kozhikode: Are the old days of political killings lurking in the dark? With two recurring murders of RSS workers at Kannur, political leaders, writers and activists fear that the notorious days of horrifying political clashes, are coming back.
Beginning with the murder of Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, an RSS worker in 1968, CPM-RSS clashes triggered off political violence in Kannur district, finally taking the toll of political murders to 167 by 2010, according to police records. On a rough estimate more than 3,000 party workers have been rendered helpless with serious injuries.
After the murder of T.P.Chandrashekharan on May 4, 2012, the CPM has been struggling to face an avalanche of criticism. The interval in political murders in Malabar till recently was broken by the attack on BMS worker Suresh Kumar at Thalassery on August 17.
He succumbed to his injuries on August 27. It is to be recalled that the murder of Manoj took place a few days after the BJP district committee accorded a grand welcome to more than 500 new workers, most of them former CPM members who joined the BJP in Kannur, a few metres away from the CPM district committee office.
More significantly, at the venue, BJP leaders had warned the CPM leadership that they would no more kill ordinary workers, but only the leaders who send them.
However, writer K E N Kunhammed, a CPM fellow traveller said that violence of any sort was against the spirit of democracy. “Democracy should have incessant dialogue and should accommodate opposite views and ardent criticism”, he added. “It is the deficit of democracy that leads to violence”, he said.
Poet Umesh Babu, an intellectual who left the CPM fold said the murder of the RSS district chief would be the beginning of another round of political murders in the district. Without the knowledge of the state leadership such a heinous act would not have been executed, he said, adding that with the murder, the CPM wanted to deter its cadre from switching over to the Sangh camp.
“The incident highlights the crisis the CPM is facing”, said A.P.Abdullakutty, MLA. “Unleashing terror is the lone way by which they can hold back cadres”, he added. But the CPM leadership denied all the charges levelled against it. “Our party never attests such murders”, said CPM leader M.V.Jayarajan. “There has been an organised attempt to tarnish the image of party by the Sangh”, he added.
THE MURDER TRIAL
- 1968 - RSS worker Vadikkal Ramakrishnan murdered
- 1971 - Communal riot, a product of serial violence.
- 1999 - Murder attempt on CPIM district secretary P Jayarajan at his paternal home at Kathiroor
- 2000 - Cold blooded murder of RSS leader KT Jayakrishnan, accused in the attempt in a classroom in front of students.
- 2012 - TP Chandrasekharan murder plotted in Kannur, executed in Onchiyam
- 2014 - (August 17) attack on BMS worker Suresh Kumar. He died on August 27
- 2014 (September 1) - Murder of RSS district head Elanthottathil Manoj.
