RSS worker hacked to death near Kannur (Representational pic)

A Rashtriya Swayamswvak Sangh (RSS) worker has been hacked to death by unidentified men near Kerala’s Kannur district. The victim has been identified as Parambathu Shamoj, an auto driver, and was murdered late on Monday night in Mahe district of Puducherry, The Indian Express reported. Mahe is adjacent to Kannur which also happens to be the home district of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

According to police, Shamoj was killed when he was returning home. The IE report said that the RSS activist was in his autorickshaw when a gang chased him down and hacked him. Police said that Shamoj suffered serious injuries and succumbed while being transported to a hospital in Kozhikode, around 90 km from Kannur.

Notably, the incident came just hours after a CPI-M local committee member was hacked to death in the same area. Police suspect that Shamoj’s killing possibly took place in a retaliatory attack. The deceased CPI-M worker has been identified as Kannioyil Babu (45). Police said that he was hacked by a gang of unidentified men at around 9:15 pm. He was a native of Pallur in Mahe.

The killing of ruling CPI-M worker took place just 200 meters away from his house under the jurisdiction of Pallur police station. Police said that prima facie it appears to be a political murder. “There had been stray incidents of violence in the region involving BJP and CPI (M) in the past. However, there hadn’t been any issue in the recent days,’’ Pallur police station SHO R Shanmukham said.

The latest killings add to the spate of incidents of political violence between the ruling Left and the RSS in Kerala where workers of both the groups often attack each other to make their dominance felt in the state. According to the BJP, as many as 80 workers along in the politically sensitive Kannur district and over 125 in different parts of the state have been killed since 2001.

The CPI-M, on the other hand, has always accused the RSS of resorting to violence and denied the involvement of its cadres in killings. Last October, the BJP had organised state-wide protests to protest against the killings of its workers and inaction by the government.