The United Democratic Front (UDF) on Monday went after the CPI(M) for the murder of two Youth Congress activists in Kasaragod, accusing it of perpetrating the cult of political violence.
The highlight of the rather vehement protests of the UDF was Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s telephone call to express his shock and grief. He called up when Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullappally Ramachandran, Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal and K.C. Joseph, MLA, were at the residence of one of the bereaved families.
Mr. Chennithala termed the murders “barbaric” and saw it as an indication of the CPI(M)’s refusal to give up the cult of political violence.
Indian Union Muslim League general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty, while condemning the killings, said it was disturbing that the CPI(M) was the common factor in all political murders in the State in the past few years. “I shudder to think where justice can be had if the ruling party is promoting such violence. The murders were pre-meditated and comes even before the State recovered from Shuhaib’s murder,” he said.
The KPCC president said the State had witnessed 29 political murders in the 1,000 days since the LDF came to power, he said in a statement. He said the murders were pre-planned and the method of killing was the same in the T.P. Chandrasekharan and Shuhaib murder cases.
He said the CBI had a huge workload in Kerala. It is involved in investigations in four cases related to political murders in Kannur alone. The involvement of CPI(M) leaders had been exposed in several of these. Kerala was placed third in political murders taking place in the country. Mr. Ramachandran tried to give a historical perspective to the political killings in Kannur, linking some of them to Mr. Vijayan and CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
The UDF leadership announced its decision to defer its proposed demonstration on Tuesday against the Pinarayi government which would complete 1,000 days in office.