New Delhi: A Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, K. Shajahan, was hacked to death by a six-member gang in Kerala’s Palakkad on Sunday, August 14, late evening.
According to the police, the incident took place at 9:30 pm on Sunday when assailants waylaid and attacked Shajahan (40), a local committee member of the CPI (M), at Kottekad with sharp-edged weapons. Though he was rushed to a hospital, he was declared brought dead by doctors, Hindustan Times has reported.
The CPI(M) has called for a shutdown in the Marutha Road panchayat on Monday to protest the killing. While CPI (M) blamed the murder on persons associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party, the saffron outfits pinned the blame on CPI (M).
According to the HT report, one among the six assailants was actually the son of an eye-witness whom the attackers had also targeted. However, the attack on the eye-witness in question was averted after his son intervened.
“The investigation is underway and we recorded statements of all witnesses. We have got details of most of the accused,” said Palakkad district police superintendent R. Viswanadh, according to the news report.
Political blame game
A dramatic turn of events has been witnessed since Monday morning with the eyewitness in question initially claiming the culprits were CPI (M) members and soon turned around to allege that they were RSS workers. The BJP, for its part, contended that the Left party was trying to hide its alleged complicity in the murder.
The eyewitness, who was with the victim at the time of the attack on Sunday, told a TV channel in the morning that the assailant gang was waiting for them at the Marutha road in Palakkad and after some heated words were exchanged, two of the attackers hacked to death Kunnangadu resident Shajahan.
The eyewitness initially alleged that the two who hacked Shajahan were CPI(M) members and one among the attackers was the son of the eyewitness and that is why he was not killed.
Subsequently, barely a couple of hours later, the eyewitness told another TV channel that all the assailants were allegedly RSS workers.
He claimed that the two who carried out the killing were earlier members of the CPI(M), but were now in the RSS.
CPI(M) district secretary E.N. Suresh Babu also said that the assailants were in the past members of the party, but were in the RSS for the last over one year.
Speaking to the CPI(M)-run TV channel, he said Shajahan’s killing was with the full knowledge of the RSS.
He alleged that some RSS workers got into an argument with CPI(M) members over replacing a Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) flex board with one regarding Sree Krishna Jayanti and the victim tried to resolve the issue.
Amidst the arguments, four people left on two bikes and soon returned with weapons and targeted Shajahan, Babu said.
Opposing the allegations of the CPI(M) district secretary, BJP state president K.Surendran termed Babu’s claims as an attempt to pin the killing on the Sangh Parivar to hide the alleged complicity of the ruling party in the murder.
Surendran said, in a Facebook post, that he was thankful to the eyewitness and the media which brought out the truth.
Meanwhile, an officer of Malampuzha police station, in whose jurisdictional limits the crime was committed, said they were trying to verify which party the assailants belonged to.
The officer said that according to the FIR, it is alleged that the assailants were BJP-RSS workers.
He said that the assailants were CPI(M) members in the past, but whether they were still part of the Left party has to be verified.
The officer also said that while the assailants have been identified, no one is in custody, no arrests have been made yet and that the investigation was going on.
Local Left leaders said the victim had been out arranging decorations for the Independence Day celebrations when the incident occurred.
After the incident, local CPI(M) leaders had alleged that the “BJP and RSS were behind the murder”. However, the BJP district leadership in a statement had denied the allegation.
In April, Pallakad had witnessed twin political murders. Social Democratic Party of India leader S. Subiar was hacked to death. Within 12 hours, RSS leader A Sreeniwasan was killed in a retaliatory attack.
(With PTI inputs)