By Express News Service

GUWAHATI: A 55-year-old BJP worker Amulya Malakar was hacked to death, allegedly by a CPI-M supporter, at his residence in Rajnagar constituency in the poll-bound Tripura on Tuesday night. The victim’s brother, who too was attacked, is battling for life at a hospital.

The accused, Gopal Karmakar, who is a neighbour of the victims, was arrested by the police after he was nabbed by the locals.

This is the seventh murder of a BJP worker in the Left-ruled state in the past 13 months. The BJP, which is fast emerging as the Left’s principal rival, claimed the assailant was a CPI-M supporter.

“Last night, Karmakar went to the house of our slain worker in an inebriated state and called him out. As soon as he came out, the accused attacked the victim on the neck with a machete which he was carrying. The victim died on the spot. The accused had also attacked the victim’s brother Shankar Malakar, leaving him seriously injured,” Tripura BJP spokesman Mrinal Kanti Deb alleged.

“We view it as a political murder as people there have been issued threats by elements for their association with the BJP,” he added.

The CPI-M washed its hands of the incident. “It’s a trend in Tripura where a person getting killed over personal rivalry becoming a BJP worker. Thereafter, the charge invariably levelled is that he has been killed by the CPI-M workers,” CPI-M state secretary Bijan Dhar told The New Indian Express.