E-Paper
After attack on RSS activists, ruling CPM’s office set ablaze in Kerala
An office of the ruling CPI (M) was set ablaze in Kerala in an apparent retaliation to an attack on RSS members by cadres of the ruling party.
An office of the ruling CPM was set afire in Kerala’s Kozhikkode district early on Friday in what is seen as a retaliation to an attack on four RSS activists, police said.
The CPI (M)’s Kozhikkode district committee blamed the Sangh Parivar for the attack on the ruling party’s Vishnumangalam branch office.
The offices of both the RSS and CPI (M) are situated in a five-km radius.
Police said they are keeping a tight vigil in the area to contain escalation of violence between the fierce political rivals.
Four activists of the BJP-RSS were injured in trouble-torn Nadapuram in the same district on Thursday night in an alleged attack by a group of CPI (M) cadres with country-made bombs.
According to police the incident occurred when the BJP workers were coming out of the RSS office in the area. Of the injured, the condition of a worker is said to be serious. The RSS office also suffered minor damage in the attack.
The latest incident took place hours after an RSS leader from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh announced a reward of Rs one crore on the head Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The state has been witnessing a series of clashes between the two cadre-based parties that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.
In neighbouring Kannur district, clashes between the two have claimed the lives of at least 300 lives in last three decades.
The RSS’ Kerala unit on Thursday night described the government of Pinarayi Vijayan a “cabinet of killers”.
“The violent attacks are being done at the behest of the chief minister of Kerala. He is the initiator of the attacks. He is presiding a cabinet of killers. They are not innocents,” ANI quoted RSS ideologue Rakesh Sinha as saying.
“It is time for the home ministry to intervene,” he added.
He said Vijayan was first accused of killing of an RSS worker in the 1960s. “Technically he is free, but morally and politically he is an accused,” he added.
(With agency inputs)
