Ananthu Ashokan, a Plus Two student, was beaten to death by a gang at Cherthala on Wednesday night.
The police said 10 persons were taken into custody in connection with the incident. The LDF and the UDF have called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Alappuzha district on Friday in protest against the murder.
The teenager was reportedly attacked by the gang around 11 p.m. near Neelimangalam Rajarajeswari Temple at Pattanakkad where he had gone for the festival. He had been involved in a quarrel with his schoolmates earlier and the murder was said to be a sequel to the skirmishes.
The attackers included RSS workers, but the incident was not a political murder, a senior police official said.
The victim died of grievous injuries suffered in the physical attack. No weapons were reportedly used in the murder. He was taken to the taluk hospital at Cherthala, but his life could not be saved. Post-mortem of the body was conducted at the TD Medical College, Alappuzha, before handing it over to the relatives.
LDF district committee convener R. Nasser alleged that the RSS was behind the murder. The deceased had been a RSS loyalist earlier, but was keeping away from its programmes of late, he said in a statement.
Cherthala town would be exempted from the hartal in view of the Pooram festival at the Cherthala temple, the statement said.
