A tense situation prevails in and around Payyannur here following clashes and arson involving rival Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Sangh Parivar workers on Tuesday.
The tension escalated on Tuesday evening when CPI(M) and RSS workers engaged in bomb throwing and vandalism. In the incidents on Tuesday evening, eight DYFI workers were injured and offices of the BJP and RSS were attacked. A large posse of police personnel were deployed in the tension-hit areas by night as the Sangh Parivar called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the Payyannur Assembly constituency on Wednesday in protest against the offices and houses of Sangh Parivar workers.
According to the Payyannur police, the situation is under control now as no fresh incidents were reported on Wednesday. Raids were going on to nab perpetrators of the violence incidents, including arson.
The fresh escalation coincided with the first anniversary of the murder of CPI(M) worker C.V. Dhanaraj and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh worker C.K. Ramachandran. Payyannur and nearby areas had been tense since those murders.
According to the CPI(M), the trouble started when Sangh Parivar workers hurled country-made bombs at CPI(M) workers at Kakkampara at Ramanthali. The CPI(M) workers were on their way to the function to mark the first death anniversary of Dhanaraj, who had been hacked to death by BJP-RSS workers on July 11 last year.
The CPI(M) district leadership alleged that the objective of the Sangh Parivar was to create tension and disrupt the CPI(M) function in which party State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was to address.
Eight CPI(M) workers were injured in the attack. The incident was followed by retaliatory attacks on the BJP and RSS offices at Payyannur. Arsonists set ablaze the RSS office and vandalised the BJP office nearby. Houses and vehicles of rival CPI(M) and Sangh Parivar workers were also targeted in retaliatory attacks, the police said.
The BJP leadership here said that their party workers were not permitted to hold a function to observe the first death anniversary of Ramachandran, who had been murdered by CPI(M) workers within hours of Dhanaraj’s murder. The BJP organised a memorial day at the slain BMS worker’s house as a private function to avoid tension. The party State president Kummanam Rajasekharan would visit party offices and party workers’ houses attacked by CPI(M) workers, the BJP leadership informed.
The latest escalation came two months after RSS worker Choorakkad Biju, an accused in the Dhanaraj murder, had been hacked to death near Payyannur.
