Two leaders of the Students Federation of India (SFI), including its district secretary A.M. Ansari, were injured in an attack by motorcycle-borne, masked assailants inside the Students’ Centre, the office of the Kerala University Union, here late on Thursday.
The police said SFI district committee member and union office secretary Jerin, 21, of Vilappilsala, sustained serious injuries on the head in the attack and was admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital here.
His condition was stated to be stable. Mr. Ansari sustained injuries on his leg and was declared out of danger.
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The attack occurred around 9.30 p.m., when the miscreants, numbering eight, reached the Students’ Centre on two-wheelers and attacked the duo with swords and iron rods. There were very few people at the centre and the assailants made an easy getaway on their motorbikes after the attack but reportedly after damaging other motorbikes and vehicles that were parked on the premises.
The attack, SFI sources said, was being viewed as one in retaliation for the SFI’s campaign in the district against the student wing of a political organisation alleged to have communal leanings.
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The campaign, SFI leaders said, was against the recruitment of students from the district’s campuses for ‘terrorist activities’ and the same had led to a few altercations between representatives of both student organisations in various places in the district recently, though none of them were violent in nature. SFI leaders were facing threats in the name of the campaign, they said.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI-M] district secretary Kadakampally Surendran, State committee member Anavoor Nagappan, and other CPI(M), DYFI, SFI leaders called on the victims in the hospital, while senior police officers reached the spot.
The Museum police registered a case and are investigating.
The SFI is preparing for protests across the State from Friday.