A bomb attack near the venue of a CPI(M) programme where its State Secretary was addressing activists has hurled politically turbulent Kannur district, known as Kerala’s Marxist heartland, into tension and disquiet just as the district was limping back to normalcy after the brutal murder of a BJP worker 10 days ago even as the Marxists and BJP-RSS accused each other of being responsible for the bomb attack.
An activist of CPI(M)’s youth outfit DYFI was reportedly injured in the bomb attack said to be carried out by two unidentified bikers near the venue of a memorial meeting held at Nangarath Peedika in Thalassery on Thursday evening for a CPI(M) activist killed in political violence, when the party’s State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was speaking at the programme.
The attack took place 100 meters away from the venue where Kodiyeri, himself a native of Thalassery, was addressing the gathering. He was quick to interpret the attack as “an RSS act triggered by its intention to spread conflict throughout the region by carrying out attacks at programmes in which Marxist leaders are participating”.
The police enhanced security arrangement across the Thalassery area in order to prevent the conflict from spreading to other areas. People present at the CPI(M)
programme had reportedly failed to identify the bikers who had hurled the bomb.
A case has been registered against six persons and the police took a BJP worker into custody in connection with the bomb attack.
Stating that stringent action would be taken against those who had carried out the bomb attack, Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a native of Kannur, said in Facebook post, “This is an act of uncontrolled craving for violence. I am strongly condemning the incident. The culprits will not be pardoned.”
The BJP rejected the charge and accused the Marxists of indulging in a “campaign of lie” to put the Sangh Pariwar in the dock in order to conceal their guilt of the recent murder of a BJP worker. “The CPI(M) is trying to whip up violence by spreading lies,” said State BJP general secretary MT Ramesh while the Kannur district BJP leadership termed reports on bomb attack as baseless.
According to State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan, the CPI(M) was unleashing violence in Kannur by propagating a false report that the RSS had carried out a bomb attack near the venue of Kodiyeri’s speech. He alleged that the CPI(M) had destroyed at least nine BJP-RSS offices in Kannur on Thursday alone.
The bomb attack has sown disquiet and has caused escalation in the panic among the people living in sensitive Kannur areas that were slowly recovering from the horror of the gruesome murder on the night of January 18 of BJP worker Santhosh (52) inside his house in Andalur, Dharmadom in Thalassery. The police had arrested six CPI(M) workers for the killing.
“Santhosh’s murder had shattered the peace that was prevailing since the killing of another BJP worker, Ramith, on October 12. The bomb attack took place just when everybody here was thinking that peace was returning. Now it is feared that the district may go through another phase of violence,” said Sasidharan Nambiar of Palayad, Thalassery.
The bomb attack in Thalassery sparked off violence in Kannur district and adjoining areas of Kozhikode district. The BJP office at Kottappally, Vadakara in Kozhikode district came under attack allegedly from CPI(M) activists while another office of the BJP at Iringannur in Nadapuram, Kozhikode was torched – as per BJP’s charge – by DYFI workers.
Reports from Kannur said that BJP offices and other property in areas like Ulikkal, Naduvanad and Chavassery in the district came under Marxist attack on Thursday and Friday and the party observed dawn-to-dusk protest shutdown in these places. At the same time, the Kannur CPI(M) accused of the BJP of unleashing attacks on its offices and vandalizing martyrs’ memorials.