One youth was stabbed to death and three others seriously injured in a political clash allegedly between the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers at Kanjikode in Pudussery village near here on Wednesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a 12-hour hartal from 12 p.m to 12 a.m on Wednesday to protest against the killing and attack on RSS workers.
The shops and business establishments were closed down and the bus services were suspended immediately after the flash hartal was announced in the District.
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The `flash hartal’ has put large number of students, employees and other commuters in great hardship as the bus and other vehicles were off the road since in the afternoon as the BJP workers stopped them on the road.
The people were having a harrowing experience as they could not get any conveyance to reach their destination and stranded for hours in the bus stops and enroute in the absence of any vehicle plying.
In the attack an RSS worker Ratheesh (24) of Kalandithara, Kurudikkad, Kanjikode died on the way to the District hospital. His friends Vinu and Lenin were admitted to a private hospital at Coimbatore in a serious condition and Girish was admitted to the Thrissur Medical College.
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They were attacked while travelling in a bus from Kanjikode to Palakkad allegedly by a four –member-gang of CPI (M) workers.
The assailants stopped the bus and threatened the passengers and stabbed the four youths inside the bus.
The injured were taken to the District Hospital in the jeep of Dy. Superintendent of Police M.K. Pushkaran who was passing through that route.
The body of the deceased Ratheesh is kept in the mortuary of the District Hospital and the cremation will take place on Thursday.
According to the police sources this attack was retaliation of an earlier attack on a CPI(M) worker of Pudussery on November 23.
Meanwhile Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told media persons here on Wednesday that the Government will conduct an impartial inquiry into the incident and bring to book the culprits.
When asked about the alleged involvement of CPI (M) workers he said that since the Government was organizing a mega inaugural function of the Grand Kerala Shopping festival where the Chief Minister and a number of Ministers were scheduled to participate such an incidents will not be organized by anybody who supported the Government.
The Government had cancelled the inaugural function of the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival scheduled to be held at the Indira Gandhi Stadium ground in the evening and also the mega cultural programme following the inauguration on Wednesday.