Kerala CPM leader’s murder: Blame game begins over assailants’ political affiliation

The CPM state secretariat initially referred to the killers as “anti-social elements who want to foment riots in the state’’, without mentioning their political affiliation. Later in the afternoon, the state secretariat issued a statement blaming a BJP-RSS gang for the murder. “It is the habit of BJP-RSS to kill CPM workers and then unleash a baseless campaign. In this case also, the BJP has started a false propaganda with the help of the media,’’ read the statement.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who holds the Home portfolio, deplored the killing. Without giving any political colour for the killing, Vijayan said “stringent action will be taken against attempts to shatter peace. Police have been given direction to bring the culprits before law,’’ he said in a Facebook post.

Around 2am on Monday, four hours after the murder, police registered an FIR naming eight RSS-BJP workers as the accused, all from Kottekad, the native place of the victim.

Palakkad SP R Vishwanadh said “It is too early to talk about the motive behind the murder. Prima facie, there is no evidence to suggest that it was a political murder. A detailed probe is on. We have identified all the accused persons,’’ he said.

Earlier in the day, an eyewitness named Suresh told the media that there had been eight persons in the gang and two of them had hacked Shajahan. “These persons had been with the CPM in the past. Two of them had personal animosity towards Shajahan. There was an altercation between Shajahan and two of the gang members. Sabareesh and Aneesh, who hacked Shajahan, had been party members. They had a dispute over subscribing to the CPM daily Deshabhimani. Shajahan was not subscribing to the party newspaper. One of the accused, Sujesh, is my son,’’ Suresh told the media.

Soon after the eyewitness’s claims were reported, CPM district secretary E N Suresh Babu told the media, “They are not CPM activists. They had left the party years ago. They are now associated with the RSS.”

Senior BJP leader from Palakkad E Krishna Das said all of the accused were with the CPM. “Let the CPM make clear when they joined the BJP. It is a clear incident which emerged from CPM’s internal disputes. BJP or RSS has absolutely no role in the murder,’’ he said.

CPM confusion about the politics behind the murder was evident from Sunday night itself. Although party-backed media blamed RSS-BJP for the murder, CPM leaders were cagey about it. Senior party leader N N Krishnadas and party legislator A Prabhakaran wanted the police to find out the motive behind it.

On Monday morning, the CPM state leadership issued a statement deploring the murder, but was silent on the alleged RSS role. But after the party’s district secretariat blamed BJP-RSS, the state leadership, in an unusual development, issued a statement blaming BJP-RSS for the murder.

Congress state president K Sudhakaran also joined the issue, asking whether “all murders should be attributed to the BJP”. “CPM men themselves have spoken against their own party. The CPM is behind the murder,’’ he said in Kannur.