Two political workers – one a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the other a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist – were killed near Mahe in Puducherry on Monday night, The Hindu reported.
Mahe, a district of Puducherry, is surrounded on three sides by Kerala’s Kannur district, a hotspot of political violence involving the CPI(M) and the RSS.
The CPI(M)’s Babu Kannippoyil, a former municipal councillor of Mahe, was hacked to death in Pallur around 10 pm. The murder led to tension in the area. Shanej Parambath of the RSS was stabbed in the New Mahe area half an hour later. Both sides blamed each other for the murders.
Kannippoyil was on his way to a temple when he was attacked, the police said. He was taken to hospital but was declared brought dead. The RSS worker died on the way to a hospital in Kozhikode.
Both the CPI(M) and the Bharatiya Janata Party declared a dawn-to-dusk strike in Mahe and Kannur on Tuesday. Kannur University postponed all exams scheduled for Tuesday, according to Manorama Online.
There have been several such incidents of right-wing and left-wing activists being attacked in Kerala over the past decade and a half. There are no official figures, but data obtained from a Right to Information query showed that both sides lost at least 30 workers each between 2000 and 2016. Kannur alone reported 69 political murders in this period.
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