Two violent deaths of leaders from the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have rocked Alappuzha.
SDPI State secretary K.S. Shan, 38, and BJP leader Ranjith Sreenivas, 40, were brutally murdered in a span of less than 12 hours by assailants in separate incidents. While Shan was attacked by a gang at Kuppezham Junction in Mannancherry on Saturday night, Sreenivas, OBC Morcha State secretary, was assaulted in his home at Vellakinar in Alappuzha on Sunday morning.
50 persons in custody
The police suspected the ‘political killings’ were connected. Harshita Attaluri, Inspector General of Police, said that 50 people were taken into custody in connection with the murders. However, no arrest was made as of Sunday evening. The police said they had collected CCTV footage of the attack on Shan from the spot and visuals of assailants reaching the house of Sreenivas on motorcycles. The investigators had also taken an SDPI-owned ambulance into custody.
Prohibitory orders
In the backdrop of the violence, District Collector A. Alexander clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Cr.PC in the district for Sunday and Monday.
While the SDPI alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was behind the attack on Shan, the BJP blamed the SDPI for the murder of its leader.
According to the police, the attack on Shan occurred around 7.30 p.m. He was heading home on his motorcycle when a car rear-ended the two-wheeler. A group of persons came out of the car and attacked him with iron rods and other weapons, the police said.
He was first admitted to a hospital in Alappuzha and later shifted to another hospital in Kochi where he succumbed to his injuries around 11.30 p.m. The police said the car used by the gang was taken on rent. Two persons who arranged the vehicle for the assailants were taken into custody.
Sreenivas, a lawyer, was hacked by a group of attackers around 7 a.m. when he was about to go for a morning walk. According to the police, eight of the 12 people who reached on motorcycles barged into his house and brutally hacked the BJP leader in front of his mother.
His wife and children were also in the house when the incident took place. Though he was taken to a hospital, his life could not be saved. According to the police, the attack bears the hallmark of typical tit-for-tat targeting of a rival.
The police were also looking for any possible connection between the murder of Shan and that of Nandu, an RSS worker who was killed allegedly by SDPI workers at Vayalar, near Cherthala, earlier this year.
Both Shan and Sreenivas had contested in the 2016 Assembly polls from Ambalappuzha and Alappuzha constituencies respectively. Shan had also contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Alappuzha seat.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condemned the twin murders. He urged society to isolate forces that spread hate and terror in the community. He said the killings were inimical to the State’s welfare. The police would arrest the assailants and conspirators soon, he said.
