Kerala: Day after murder of PFI leader, RSS activist hacked to death in Palakkad

The police identified the victim as Sreenivasan (45), a former RSS pracharak. The BJP district leadership in Palakkad said the PFI and its political wing SDPI were behind the murder. The five-member gang had arrived on two-wheelers, wielding swords, and hacked Sreenivasan several times, the police stated, quoting eyewitnesses.

A local RSS leader was hacked to death in Kerala’s Palakkad district on Saturday, barely a day after a PFI leader was murdered in the area. The BJP’s district leadership in Palakkad said the PFI and its political wing, the Social Democratic Party of India, were behind Saturday’s murder.

The police identified the victim as Sreenivasan (45), a former pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). A gang stormed into his shop at Melmuri in the city and hacked him multiple times around 1 pm, they said, adding that he was rushed to a hospital, but could not be saved. The five-member gang had arrived on two-wheelers, wielding swords, and hacked Sreenivasan several times, the police stated, quoting eyewitnesses.

On Friday noon, A Subair (44), the Elappully area chief of the Popular Front of India (PFI), was killed near the local mosque where he and his father, Aboobacker, had gone to offer Friday prayers, the police had said.

The police had found that a car used by the assailants – who are yet to be identified – was registered in the name of RSS leader S Sanjith, who was killed by PFI-SDPI men in November last year. Sanjith’s family confirmed that the car belonged to him, but had been left at a workshop months before his death, the police said. They could not confirm who had taken the car from the workshop.

The police also found that another car, allegedly abandoned by the killers of Subair, was taken on rent on Friday morning by a local BJP worker named Rameshan, who is now absconding.

BJP state general secretary C Krishnakumar claimed the SDPI and the PFI were behind the attack on Saturday. “The police could not prevent the killing of the RSS worker. Yesterday, we had already denied the role of our workers or any Sangh Parivar men behind the killing of the PFI worker,” he said.