Four Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) workers were arrested on Saturday in the case of the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker at Kommeri here on January 19.
The accused have been identified as Muhammad Basheer, Saleem Hamsa, Ameer Abdul Rahman and Shaheem Shamsudheen. The police said that the four had been nabbed from near Boys Town here by the Thalappuzha police in Wayanad district. The accused would be produced before the Koothuparamba Judicial First Class Magistrate later on Saturday, the police said.
The police said that Shyam Prasad (24), RSS functionary of nearby Kannavam, had been hacked to death on January 19 evening by the four accused. The victim had been riding on a motorcycle with his friend at Kommeri when the four SDPI workers, travelling in a car, intercepted the two-wheeler and stabbed him. Though he had tried to enter a nearby house, the masked assailants hacked him to death on the verandah of the house.
The police said that the car used by the assailants were identified on the information provided by the victim's friend who was riding with him. The car was also taken into custody, the police said.
According to the Peravur police, which questioned the arrested, the murder of the RSS worker was in retaliation for the attack on SDPI worker T.P. Ayub (22) by alleged RSS workers at Chittariparamba under the nearby Kannavam Police station limits here on January 11. A school van driver, he had been stabbed while he was returning in his van in the afternoon. The Peravur police said that four arrested SDPI workers had been looking for an opportunity to attack Shyam Prasad in retaliation over the past two or three days.
Additional forces have been deployed in the area in view of the tension following the murder. The body of the deceased would be taken in a funeral procession from the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital, where the post mortem was done, to him home at Kannavam. The body is being kept for public viewing at Taliparamba, Kannur, Koothuparamba and Kannavam.
The BJP is also observing a hartal in the district in protest against the murder. Vehicles have been exempted from the hartal. BJP workers staged a march here to condemn the murder.
Condemning the murder, BJP district president P. Sathyaprakash said in a statement that the "Islamic jihadi extremists" and Communists had now become almost like Siamese twins. Alleging that the CPI(M) was responsible for turning this district into a source of Islamic extremism, he said the CPI(M) leadership was downplaying it, and giving respectability to the anti-national positions of Islamic extremists.
