The Ujjain Police have registered a case against former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Kundan Chandrawat for offering Rs 1-crore bounty on the head of Kerala chief minister, Hindustan Times reported on Saturday. The police took suo motu cognizance and registered the case late on Friday, even though Chandrawat had retracted his statement on Thursday night.
“We are yet to arrest the accused but we have the video recording. Investigations are on,” said Ujjain superintendent of police MS Verma. The former right-wing leader will face three years’ jail term if he is found guilty. He was sacked from the outfit after his statement kicked up a controversy. The RSS took action against him even though he expressed regret and said that he had made an “emotional statement” because he was pained by the death of Sangh workers in Kerala.
While CM Pinarayi Vijayan (pictured above) had dismissed the threat, the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had said, “By this the RSS has reconfirmed that it spearheads the politics of violence and terror as has been clear in Kerala in the recent months.” They had also demanded immediate action against him for making the remarks.
Chandrawat’s comments came in the backdrop of several cases of political violence involving workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party, RSS and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). There have been at least nine political murders in Kerala since the Left Democratic Front government came to power in May 2016. Both the RSS and the CPI(M) have blamed each other for the bloodshed.
The latest of these political killings took place on February 12, when a BJP worker was hacked to death in Thrissur district. The BJP accused the CPI(M) of the murder.
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