There is panic in Kannur, the political killing field of Kerala following the murder of an RSS activist Vineesh near Iritty allegedly by Marxists in the wee hours of Sunday.
Acting on a tip-off, police found the critically-wounded Vineesh (27) lying on a deserted path near Thillenkery town. The RSS worker, who had suffered hack wounds to his head and legs, succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital.
A dawn-to-dusk shutdown called on Sunday by the BJP to protest against the murder passed off largely peacefully, though some minor incidents were reported from some places. The entire district remained under a security cover as police personnel were deployed in large numbers in Thillenkery.
Coming within two months of the murder of BJP-BMS activist CK Ramachandran (48) at Annoor, Payyannur in the district, the killing of Vineesh has resulted in fear and panic among the people of the district, especially in violence-prone places as the possibility of such incidents recurring is very high.
Vineesh was murdered at a time when the Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who hails from Kannur district, has been repeatedly claiming that the all is well with the law and order situation in the State under the rule of the CPI(M)-led lDF Government.
The attack on Vineesh took place about one-and-a-half hours after Jijesh (28), a local leader of the DYFI, CPI(M)'s youth outfit, suffered injuries in a bomb attack on the car he was travelling in at Alayad Road near Thillenkery town. Jijesh, son of Asha, a member of the Thillenkery gram panchayat, has been admitted to a hospital in Kannur.
Incidentally, Jijesh, vice-president of the DYFI's Kunderinjal unit in Thillenkery, was an accused in the case pertaining to the bomb attack on the house of Sugesh, an area Karyavah of the RSS at Muzhakkunnu in Kannur on August 25. The CPI(M) observed a 6 am to 6 pm shutdown in Thillenkery Panchayat limits to protest against the attack on Jijesh.
State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan on Sunday warned the CPI(M) not to play with fire as it had allegedly done by killing the RSS activist. However, Rajasekharan asked BJP workers not to abandon the democratic path while reacting to the incident as the party did not believe in the system of countering ideas with weapons.
"Anybody in Kannur will tell you that there has always been an increase in the number of violent incidents in the district whenever the CPI(M) is in power," said Dharma Raj, a retired Government employee from Koothuparamba, a violence-prone place in Kannur. "That is a trend and I don't think the CPI(M) leaders are doing anything to stop that tendency," he added.
Vilasini Amma, a resident of Iritty, said the people were fed up with "this political blood-sport". "Earlier, incidents of Marxist-RSS violence took place mostly in Panoor, Thalassery and Kuthuparamba areas. It now seems to be spreading all over the district. You can't fathom the magnitude of fear these incidents are creating among us," she said.
Ridiculing Pinarayi's claims over the law and order situation in Kerala, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress said that Vineesh's murder should open the eyes of the CM to the ground reality. He added that Pinarayi's statement was in fact a call to his partymen to indulge in violence.