Thiruvananthapuram: Political violence involving the Communist Party of India Marxist and the Bharatiya Janata Party continued unabated in Kerala, with a BJP man being the latest victim.
In an incident late on Sunday night in Thrissur, BJP worker Nirmal Balan (20) was hacked to death by assailants, and his friend Midhun alias Thomas (29) was seriously injured. BJP workers alleged that CPM men were behind the attack.
The BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk strike in Thrissur district to protest the killing, which brought the district to a standstill on Monday.
The attack on the BJP men happened during a late evening temple festival in the locality. BJP workers alleged that a five-man gang had committed the crime. The Mannuthy police is investigating the crime.
There had been friction between BJP and CPM ranks for a while at Mukkattukara, where the incident happened. The BJP made its strike call on Monday morning, which caught many office-goers and others unawares when they set off for work on Monday morning.
Two days ago, Jishnu, 24, a zonal joint secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the youth wing of the CPM, was hacked to death at Karuvatta near Haripad in south Kerala. His DYFI colleague, Swaraj, 19, suffered serious injuries when they were attacked by a gang.
The killing of Nirmal Balan in Thrissur on Sunday night comes even as the CPM and BJP leaderships in the state are set to hold a meeting to end the series of attacks against each others’ cadres.
