THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the fight for political one-upmanship between the CPM and BJP continues at Nemom, violence while conducting a temple festival has become common. On Sunday night, three activists from both sides were hacked when Velakku Kettu from Pattarathu Chamudeshawari temple arrived at Pappanamcode Estate area. Those hacked were identified as Akhilesh, 27, Sumesh, 33 and Shameer, 38. Several others were injured during festivals. The victims were lying on ground for several minutes. The police officials who came here to disperse the crowd were also injured.
In recent years, the expenditure during temple festivals had gone up leading to fights in every corner. Small scale fights have been common since the temple festival began at Pattarathu. Recently, during Vellayani temple festival, both the sides had a stand-off over festival arrangements and saffron flags. This lead to District collector S, Venkateshapathy issuing a status quo order on arrangements. A string of violence is happening before Assembly elections itself. The violence at Nemom started in April 2016 after two CPM workers Sabarish and Abhijith were hacked by RSS men. In retaliation, RSS activist Santhosh of the same area was also reportedly hacked. Most of the violent incidents were reported at Estate ward, Pappanamcode, Nemom and Vellayanu.
